The Metaphysics of the Material World

The Metaphysics of
the Material World
Suárez, Descartes, Spinoza

TA D M . S C H M A LT Z

1
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Schmaltz, Tad M., 1960– author.
Title: The metaphysics of the material world : Suárez,
Descartes, Spinoza / Tad M. Schmaltz.
Description: New York : Oxford University Press, 2019. | Includes index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019020681 | ISBN 9780190070229 (hardback) |
ISBN 9780190070236 (updf) | ISBN 9780190070243 (epub) |
ISBN 9780190070250 (online)
Subjects: LCSH: Metaphysics. | Suárez, Francisco, 1548–1617. |
Descartes, René, 1596–1650. | Spinoza, Benedictus de, 1632–1677.
Classification: LCC BD111 .S3225 2019 | DDC 110—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019020681

1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2

Printed by Sheridan Books, Inc., United States of America

Chapter 5 includes substantial material from “Descartes on the Metaphysics

of the Material World,” which was originally published in The Philosophical Review,
Vol. 127:1, pp. 1–40. Copyright, 2018, Cornell University. All rights reserved.
Republished by permission of the copyrightholder, and the present publisher,
Duke University Press. www.dukeupress.edu
 Contents

List of Tables and Figures vii

Acknowledgments ix
List of Abbreviations xi
Prologue xiii

1. Bayle’s Narrative 1
1.1. Bayle’s Aristotelian Critique of Spinoza 2
1.2. Aristotle’s Metaphysics of the Material World 13

PA RT I . SUÁ R E Z
2. Metaphysics and Material Modes 27
2.1. Analogical Metaphysics 28
2.2. Theory of Distinctions I 35
2.3. The Metaphysics of Material Modes 47
3. Quantity, Integral Parts, and Boundaries 64
3.1. Quantity and Impenetrability I 66
3.2. Mereology and Integral Parts 80
3.3. Boundaries as Indivisible Constituents 89

PA RT I I . D E S C A RT E S
4. Metaphysical Themes from Suárez 103
4.1. Theory of Distinctions II 105
4.2. Quantity and Impenetrability II 121
4.3. The Metaphysics of Surfaces 132
5. Material Pluralism and Ordinary Bodies 144
5.1. The Synopsis and Bodies-​Taken-​in-​General 146
5.2. Incorruptibility and the Vacuum 156
5.3. Ordinary Bodies, Human and Otherwise 171

PA RT I I I . SP I N O Z A
6. Metaphysical Themes from Descartes 185
6.1. The Nature of Substance/​Attributes 187
vi Contents

6.2. The Nature of Modes 199

6.3. From Extension to Motion-​and-​Rest 212
7. Material Monism and Bodily Parts 225
7.1. Modal Parts and Divisible Quantity 227
7.2. The Mereology of the Infinite Individual 237
7.3. Parts, Modes, and Material Monism 253

Epilogue 267
Works Cited 275
Index 287
 Tables and Figures

Tables
2.1. Suárez on Distinctions and Separability 45
4.1. Suárezian and Cartesian Modes 135
5.1. Descartes on Bodies-​Taken-​in-​General 156
7.1. Spinoza on Two Kinds of Infinity 252

Figures
3.1. Suárez on Integral Parts 77
4.1. Descartes on Surfaces 134
5.1. Descartes on the Separation of Parts 164
6.1. Modes in Suárez, Descartes, Spinoza 208
6.2. Spinoza on Extension and Its Modes 216
 Acknowledgments

I gratefully acknowledge a fellowship from the American Council of Learned

Societies and a sabbatical leave from the University of Michigan, which to-
gether made possible intensive work on this project during the entire aca-
demic year of 2017–​18. I also wish to thank the École normale supérieure in
Paris for appointing me as Labex TransferS professeur invité during March
2017. This professorship afforded me the opportunity to offer a seminar on is-
sues that were to be central in the book. Special thanks to Jean-​Pascal Anfray
and Dominik Perler for extensive discussion of these issues both within and
outside of the seminar.
During my time in Paris I worked with Jean-​Pascal to organize the work-
shop, La substance matérielle dans la scolastique tardive et la philosophie
moderne, at which I tried out some of the material for the book. Thanks to
the workshop audience for very helpful discussion of this material. I also
benefitted from feedback provided during presentations of earlier versions
of sections of the book at the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen and the University
of Notre Dame. Chapter 5 draws heavily on material previously published in
The Philosophical Review; thanks to Duke University Press for permission to
re-​use this material. I also would like to acknowledge that c­ hapters 3 and 4
include material previously published in Philosophers’ Imprint.
I have incurred debts to many individuals in the course of writing the book.
With apologies to those I have forgotten, I would like to single out for recog-
nition Jean-​Pascal Anfray, Victor Caston, Domenico Collacciani, Emanuele
Costa, Ed Curley, Tarek Dika, Shane Duarte, Brian Embry, Dan Garber, John
Grey, Rima Hussein, Mogens Laerke, Gideon Manning, Yitzhak Melamed,
Steve Nadler, Debra Nails, Sonya Özbey, Sydney Penner, Dominik Perler,
Lucian Petrescu, Anat Schechtman, Stefan Schmid, Chris Shields, Alison
Simmons, and Justin Steinberg. I am especially grateful to Bob Pasnau and
Marleen Rozemond for their excellent referee reports for Oxford, which led
to substantive changes in the manuscript.
As in the past, I have enjoyed working with my Oxford editor, Peter Ohlin.
Thanks as well to the entire production team at Oxford for their profession-
alism and hard work on my behalf.
x Acknowledgments

Finally, and on a more personal note, I wish to recognize the profound in-
fluence of my two philosophical mentors, David Scarrow and Karl Ameriks.
David introduced me to the joys of philosophy, in general, and of the his-
tory of early modern philosophy, in particular, during my time at Kalamazoo
College. Karl offered superb guidance first as a teacher and then as my disser-
tation supervisor at the University of Notre Dame. Both provided examples
of philosophical excellence in action that have served as a source of inspira-
tion for me. As a very small token of my appreciation, I dedicate this book
to them.
 Abbreviations

In the notes and text, I use the following abbreviations of editions of primary
texts, keyed to items in the Works Cited section:
AT = Descartes 1964–​74, cited by volume and page. For translation of certain
passages, I have consulted Descartes 1984–​85 and Descartes 1991.
CW = Aristotle 1984, cited by volume and page. I have used the translations in this
collection.
DHC = Bayle 1740, cited by article, remark (where applicable), volume,
and page. A searchable online version of this text provided by the ARTFL Project at
https://​artfl-​project.uchicago.edu/​content/​dictionnaire-​de-​bayle.
DM = Suárez 2009, cited by disputation, section, paragraph, volume, and page.
There is a searchable online version of the text at http://​homepage.ruhr-​uni-​
bochum.de/​Michael.Renemann/​suarez/​. For translation of certain portions of this
text, I have consulted the following: For Disputatio VII, Suárez 1947; for Disputatio
XV, Suárez 2000; for Disputationes XVII–​XIX, Suárez 1994; for Disputationes XX–​
XXII, Suárez 2002; for Disputatio XLVII, Suárez 2006.
G = Spinoza 1925, cited by volume and page. For translation, I have consulted
Spinoza 1985–​2016.
OD = Bayle 1964–​90, cited by volume and page.
ST = Thomas Aquinas 1964–​81, cited by part, question, article, volume, and page. I
have consulted the translations in this edition.
 Prologue

It is something of a commonplace in discussions of European intellectual his-

tory that over the course of the seventeenth century, an Aristotelian account
of material nature was increasingly displaced by a broadly “mechanical”
view of bodies. To get a sense of the nature of this displacement, one need
only compare a late (i.e., post-​medieval) scholastic account of the material
world to an account of bodies in the work of René Descartes (1596–​1650).
One version of the former account appeals to “real accidents,” such as quan-
tity, that inhere in material substances composed of “substantial form” and
“prime matter.” In contrast, the latter account is much more spare, appealing
as it does only to the sizes, shapes, and motions of the parts of a substance
the nature of which consists in extension alone.1 We seem to have here an
example of what Thomas Kuhn has famously characterized as a “paradigm
shift,” in which one worldview is replaced by an “incommensurable” alterna-
tive (Kuhn 1962).
However, there is an indication in Pierre Bayle’s incomparable Dictionaire
historique et critique (1st edition, 1697; 2nd edition, 1702)2 that Descartes
himself drew on the conceptual resources of the scholastics in formulating
his more “modern” view of the material world. In the initial edition of his
text, Bayle emphasizes the scholastic basis for the Cartesian conclusion
that extension is composed of really distinct parts. But in the second edi-
tion, Bayle highlights the importance of another feature of scholasticism.
He notes that whereas the scholastics in general deviated from Aristotle in
holding that “an accident can exist without a subject,” some of them none-
theless distinguished certain accidents “whose distinction from the subject
was not real, and which could not subsist outside of their subject. They called

1 It is worth noting, however, that Descartes himself was capable of rejecting Aristotle at one mo-

ment while invoking his authority at the next. On the one hand, there is his request to his friend
Mersenne not to tell “the supporters of Aristotle” that the Meditations contains the foundations of
his physics so that “readers will gradually get used to my principles, and recognize their truth, be-
fore they notice that they destroy the principles of Aristotle” (March 4, 1641, AT III.297). On the
other, there is his comment to his former teacher at La Flèche, the Jesuit Charlet, that his philosophy
will “serve effectively to explain the truths of faith without, moreover, contradicting the writings of
Aristotle” (February 9, 1645, AT IV.157).
2 The modernized “Dictionnaire” was first used in the title of the 1820 Desoer edition of Bayle’s text.
xiv Prologue

these accidents modes.” This understanding is said to have been adopted by

“Descartes, Gassendi, and in general all those who abandoned the scholastic
philosophy,” who “have given to all accidents the nature of those that one calls
mode” (DHC, “Spinoza,” rem. DD, IV.269a). Though Bayle does not identify
the specific scholastic source for the modern notion of mode, we are in a
position to do so: it is the influential Spanish Jesuit Francisco Suárez (1548–​
1617). Suárez would therefore seem to be a particularly important figure
for Bayle’s narrative concerning the development of the metaphysics of the
material world.
The views from the Dictionaire I have just cited are from an entry on
Descartes’s successor Benedict Spinoza (1632–​1677). In this entry, Bayle
emphasizes Spinoza’s allegiance to Descartes’s conception of the material
world in terms of divisible extension and its modes. According to Bayle,
Spinoza holds that “the divine substance is the subject of the inherence of
matter and of all varieties of extension . . . in the same sense according to
Descartes that extension is the subject of inherence of motion” (DHC,
“Spinoza,” rem. N, IV.259b). Bayle’s judgment of this view is harsh: “[It is] the
most monstrous that could be imagined, the most absurd, the most diamet-
rically opposed to the most evident notions of our mind” (DHC, “Spinoza,”
IV.259). With respect to the material world, in particular, the monstrous re-
sult is that God is the divisible and mutable subject of bodily modes. Whether
this result can be attributed to Spinoza himself depends in large part on
whether Bayle is correct in assuming that he is committed to basic elements
of the account of the material world in Descartes that are themselves rooted
in late scholastic metaphysics.
For Suárez and Descartes, substance-​mode metaphysics applies gener-
ally, to immaterial as well as material substances. And for Spinoza, this sort
of metaphysics covers the one substance insofar as it is thinking as well as
extended. However, a focus on the material world allows us to explore the
relation between the modes and parts of matter, something that for Suárez
and Descartes would not be an issue in the case of indivisible immaterial
substances. It is otherwise for Spinoza; given his so-​called (though not by
him) parallelism doctrine, according to which “the order and connection of
ideas is the same as the order and connection of things” (E IIp7, G II.89),
what holds for extended substance and its modes holds as well for thinking
substance and its ideas. Nonetheless, Spinoza’s most explicit account of the
“parts” that compose nature concerns specifically material nature. And it is
 Prologue xv

with respect to material nature that Bayle takes Spinoza’s monism to be most
obviously “diametrically opposed to the most evident notions of our mind.”
The discussion in this book will follow the route set out in Bayle, which
starts with Suárez, proceeds through Descartes, and ends in Spinoza. This sort
of discussion is in line with certain trends in the recent Anglophone litera-
ture. For instance, this literature has increasingly emphasized the significance
of Suárez for the history of philosophy.3 Moreover, there has been a growing
interest among English-​language commentators in scholastic antecedents of
Descartes’s metaphysical views.4 Finally, metaphysical issues continue to be
prominent in scholarly discussions of Spinoza.5 However, to my knowledge
there is no study that attempts to systematically link these three figures in the
manner I have indicated.6 In light of Bayle’s remarks, this is somewhat sur-
prising, since they indicate that certain features of late scholastic metaphysics
inform not only Descartes’s non-​scholastic view of bodies but also Spinoza’s
distinctive account of the material world in terms of “God or nature” (Deus
sive natura). The relations among these views will be the focus of this book.
In an initial chapter, I offer a preliminary consideration of the critique in
the entry on Spinoza in Bayle’s Dictionaire. I call this an “Aristotelian” critique
to reflect Bayle’s own claim that the notion of mode that Descartes adopted
from late scholasticism, and that is purportedly an important source of the
downfall of Spinoza’s substance monism, derives ultimately from Aristotle’s
own account of accidents. However, in returning to this account, we will dis-
cover reasons to distinguish Aristotle’s accidents from the modes that later
thinkers posited. This negative result indicates the crucial importance of later
developments in scholasticism for a consideration of the metaphysics of the
material world in early modern thought.
The first section of this book takes up medieval and post-​medieval
scholastic discussions of the relevant metaphysical issues, with particular

3 The appearance of Hill and Lagerlund 2012 and Schwartz 2012 attests to the resurgence of in-

terest in Suárez in this literature. This resurgence was anticipated in the French literature; see, for
instance, Coutrine 1990 and Carraud 2002, ch. 1.
4 As reflected, for instance, in Des Chene 1996, Rozemond 1998, Ariew 1999, Secada 2000, and

Schmaltz 2008.
5 See, for instance, Viljanen 2011, Melamed 2013, and Peterman 2015.
6 A similar route is traced in Hartbecke 2008, though in this case the road ends with Holbach rather

than Spinoza. Moreover, this article provides a very quick tour of the road from Suárez through
Descartes to Spinoza, whereas I will be concerned here to proceed at a much more leisurely pace.
There is also a consideration in Pasnau 2011 of the relation of Suárez to Descartes on the issue of the
nature of extension and its modes. However, this work makes only passing reference to Spinoza.
xvi Prologue

emphasis on the contributions of Suárez. Chapter 2 concerns the metaphys-

ical basis for Suárez’s account of the material world. What is especially rele-
vant here is his introduction into the scholastic theory of distinctions of an
intermediate “modal distinction,” which yields the first clear instance of the
early modern notion of a mode. I close the chapter with a consideration of
the two material modes most important for Suárez, namely, the substantial
mode of union and the accidental mode of inherence. Then, in ­chapter 3,
I focus on an aspect of Suárez’s metaphysics that is especially relevant to
the non-​scholastic identification of matter with extension in early modern
thought, namely, his account of the nature of the Aristotelian accident of
“continuous quantity.” There is a particular stress in this chapter on Suárez’s
views of the impenetrability of quantity and the mereological structure of its
“integral parts” and their boundaries.
In the second section, we transition from a late scholastic conception
of the material world to the alternative to this conception that Descartes
offers. In ­chapter 4, I discuss the presence in Descartes of certain “meta-
physical themes” from Suárez. The first involves the Suárezian conception
of a mode, which I take to have had a direct influence on Descartes’s mature
metaphysics. Subsequent themes serve to link Descartes’s views to those of
Suárez with respect to the relation between impenetrability and quantity, on
the one hand, and to the ontological status of bodily “surfaces,” on the other.
In c­ hapter 5, we proceed to the question—​prominent in the literature—​of
whether Descartes adopts pluralism, according to which the material world
is composed of (indefinitely) many distinct substances, or rather monism,
according to which there is a single extended substance, of which all other
bodies are mere modes. In arguing for a pluralist interpretation, I highlight
the result in Descartes that the realm of extension is composed of distinct
substantial and incorruptible “bodies-​taken-​in-​general.” However, I also
argue that this result is at some odds with Descartes’s own suggestion—​in
line with scholastic thought—​that ordinary bodies of our experience provide
paradigmatic instances of enduring substances.
In the third section, we arrive at the endpoint of our journey, namely, the
monistic conception of the material world in Spinoza that is the target of
Bayle’s critique in the Dictionaire. Chapter 6 explores certain metaphysical
themes in Spinoza that serve to link his views to those of Descartes. These
include both the substance and mode portions of Spinoza’s substance-​mode
metaphysics, as well as his application of this metaphysics to the particular
case of the material world. Though there are obvious as well as subtle debts
 Prologue xvii

to Descartes here, there is also in Spinoza a fundamental re-​conception of

the Cartesian material world in terms of a “power ontology” that identifies
finite bodies with determinate “expressions” of divine power. Yet it is perhaps
troubling that Spinoza at times refers to these bodies as “parts” that compose
an infinite material nature. In light of Bayle’s critique, an obvious question is
whether such talk is compatible with a monism in Spinoza that requires the
indivisibility of extended substance. My attempt to address this question in
­chapter 7 draws attention to the notion in Spinoza—​clearly anticipated in
neither Suárez nor Descartes—​of modal parts. The pluralism that Descartes
attributes to extended substance is for Spinoza to be restricted to the modes
of this substance. These modes are, in turn, to be conceived in terms the na-
ture of an infinite modal whole composed of all finite bodily “individuals” as
modal parts.
The investigation undertaken here serves to highlight two main
developments in the metaphysics of the material world in early modern phi-
losophy. The first is the evolution of the notion of a bodily mode, starting
with Suárez’s introduction of such modes as accidental features of mate-
rial substances and their real qualities, leading to Descartes’s identification
of them with variable two-​dimensional features of three-​dimensional sub-
stantial bodily parts, and resulting in Spinoza’s view of these modes as de-
terminate expressions of God’s infinite power as manifested in the material
world. The second is the evolution of the notion of quantity, starting with
Suárez’s view of it as a real accident that is a source of impenetrability and
that is itself composed of infinitely many integral parts, leading to Descartes’s
identification of it with an impenetrable extended substance that is divisible
without end into substantial parts, and resulting in Spinoza’s conception of it
as an infinite extended substance that is indivisible by its very nature but that
also has infinitely many divisible bodily individuals as modes. On these two
points there is a discernible line of descent, and to this extent the narrative
that Bayle offers us is vindicated. But more than such a narrative indicates,
this is a line of descent with modification, involving not only Descartes’s
fundamental revision of Suárezian notions of bodily modes and continuous
quantity, but also Spinoza’s fundamental revision of Cartesian notions of
bodily modes and extended substance.
The Metaphysics of the Material World
 1
Bayle’s Narrative

As indicated in the prologue, we will be following a route through the early

modern development of the metaphysics of the material world provided by
the narrative that Pierre Bayle offers in his Dictionaire historique et critique.
Bayle’s emphasis on the emergence of the technical notion of a modification
of substance may seem initially to be merely a historical footnote. However,
it turns out to be central to his critique in the Dictionaire of Spinoza’s iden-
tification of God with the “substance” of the material world. According to
Bayle, the notion of mode that Spinoza inherited from Descartes, and that
Descartes inherited from late scholasticism, reveals the incoherence of the
view that bodies are merely modifications of a single indivisible extended
substance. In fact, Bayle traces this notion back to Aristotle’s original under-
standing of an accident as something that depends essentially on the partic-
ular subject in which it inheres. This fundamental notion of accident, which
in Bayle’s view is revived in the early modern notion of modification, is pur-
ported to be the one that serves to bring down the entire edifice of Spinoza’s
material monism.
Section 1.1 concerns a critique of Spinoza in Bayle’s Dictionaire that
emphasizes the particular charge that God as extended substance cannot
be the subject of all of the parts of matter and their various material states.
In response to the objection that the version of this critique in the first edi-
tion of the Dictionaire completely misunderstands Spinoza’s own view of the
relation of God to other material things, Bayle felt the need to add to the
second edition a further defense of this critique that includes the narrative
I have noted. Taken together, the two editions emphasize two problems with
Spinoza’s monism, the first of which concerns the divisible and composite
nature of extended substance, and the second the mutability of this substance
that derives from the fact that it is the subject of changing modifications.
In order to further evaluate Bayle’s defense of his critique of Spinoza,
I focus in §1.2 on the suggestion in the Dictionaire that the substance-​mode
metaphysics of the material world that Spinoza inherited from Descartes
ultimately derives from Aristotle. In particular, I examine in light of Bayle’s

The Metaphysics of the Material World. Tad M. Schmaltz, Oxford University Press (2020).
© Oxford University Press.
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190070229.001.0001
2 The Metaphysics of the Material World

remarks both Aristotle’s account in the Categories of the distinction between

“substance” and “accident,” and his view in the Metaphysics of the structure
of material substance. The main result here is the negative one that Aristotle’s
discussion in these texts does not provide a clear basis for the sort of meta-
physics of the material world that Bayle attributes to Descartes and Spinoza.
Such a result indicates that in considering the nature of this metaphysics
one cannot simply bypass scholasticism in order to return to the source in
Aristotle. Rather, an examination of scholastic reconstructions of Aristotle’s
metaphysics turns out to be indispensable. For this reason, I consider in the
next chapter the particularly important reconstruction of Aristotelian met-
aphysics in the work of Francisco Suárez, who introduced to early modern
thought the notion of modification on which Bayle places so much emphasis
in his critique of Spinoza.

1.1. Bayle’s Aristotelian Critique of Spinoza

1.1.1. The Spinoza Article

Spinoza has a prominent presence in Bayle’s Dictionaire, with appearances

not only in the article devoted exclusively to him, but in at least twenty-​
seven other articles.1 Moreover, the article on Spinoza, already the longest
in the first edition (1697) of the Dictionaire, was significantly expanded in
the second edition (1702), the last published during Bayle’s lifetime.2 This
expanded version includes several new remarks, in some of which, as I have
indicated, Bayle was particularly concerned to defend against the objections
of “the Spinozists” his judgment in the first edition that Spinoza’s monism—​
that is, his view that God is the only substance, of which everything else is
a modification—​is “the most monstrous hypothesis [la plus monstreuse
hypothèse] that could be imagined, the most absurd, and the most diamet-
rically opposed to the most evident notions of our mind” (DHC, “Spinoza,”
IV.259).3

1 For the list of references to Spinoza and Spinozism in the Dictionaire and Bayle’s other writings,

see Mori 1998: 357–​58.

2 The first edition version of the article was published separately in Dutch translation in 1698,

accompanied by a translation of Bayle’s discussion of Spinoza’s life and works, as well as of a defense
of Christianity by the rationalist theologian Isaac Jaquelot.
3 The version of the Spinoza article cited here—​from Bayle 1740, the fifth edition—​is the same as

that found in the second edition of 1702, which is the last to include additions and corrections from
Bayle himself. For more on Bayle and his writings, see Hickson and Lennon 2013.
 Bayle’s Narrative 3

Here I focus on that harsh judgment in Bayle, especially with respect to

Spinoza’s identification of God with extended substance. However, I would
be remiss in not mentioning that Bayle’s view of Spinoza is not entirely nega-
tive. For one thing, Bayle clearly was impressed with his personal character-
istics, noting at one point the consensus that Spinoza “was sociable, affable,
honest, obliging, and well-​ordered in morality” (DHC, “Spinoza,” V.257–​58).
Spinoza was in fact a paradigmatic example for Bayle of a “virtuous atheist,”
someone who rejected divine providence yet lived in a socially exemplary
manner.4 Furthermore, Bayle clearly sympathizes with certain features of
Spinoza’s Tractatus Theologico-​Politicus, such as its Erastian emphasis on the
need for state control of religion.5
That being said, it remains the case that Bayle expresses in the Dictionaire a
decidedly hostile view of the metaphysical conclusion in Spinoza’s Ethics that
God is the only substance, of which all other things are modifications.6 The
previously noted charge that this text offers “the most monstrous hypothesis”
regarding the nature of God is central to the article. Indeed, in the first edi-
tion Spinoza places the remark concerning this charge (rem. I) literally at the
center of the set of remarks for this article, with eight remarks preceding and
eight following. In the second edition the importance of this remark (now
rem. N) is further emphasized by Bayle’s addition of three remarks (rems CC,
DD, and EE) that are devoted to a defense of the position expressed there.
For convenience, I subsequently refer to the remark (I/​N) as the Monstrous
Hypothesis Remark, or MHR for short.

4 Spinoza joins Epicurus as the most prominent example in the Dictionaire of a virtuous atheist.

Bayle also emphasizes Spinoza’s praiseworthy character in works that date from before and after the
publication of the Dictionaire; see, for instance, the 1694 Addition aux Pensées diverses (APD ch. IV,
OD III.175b) and the 1704 Continuation des Pensées diverses (CPD §xxv, §lxxi, §cxi, OD III.238b,
304b, and 342a). On Bayle’s positive view of Spinoza’s character, see Vernière 1982: 28–​33. One vexed
question is whether Bayle thought that actions that did not involve a love of God could nonetheless
be morally virtuous. Bayle himself added an Éclaircissement sur athées to the second edition of the
Dictionaire in which he insists that atheists can perform only “splendid sins” (splendida peccata) and
not truly virtuous actions. However, there is the argument—​related to the line of Bayle interpretation
cited in note 18—​that Bayle in fact takes the case of the virtuous atheist to show that true morality is
entirely independent of religion; see Mori 1998.
5 On the similarities of the political views of Bayle and Spinoza, see Vernière 1982: 296–​97. In the

Spinoza article, Bayle notes—​concerning the Tractatus—​that “it is not as easy to deal with all of the
difficulties contained in that work as to demolish completely the system that appeared in [Spinoza’s]
Opera posthuma” (DHC, “Spinoza,” IV.258–​59). Bayle may well have in mind here Spinoza’s radical
claims concerning the Scriptures, such as his claim that Moses is not the author of the Pentateuch.
Thanks to Ed Curley for suggesting this point to me.
6 See the suggestion in the passage cited in the note 5 that it is relatively easy to “demolish com-

pletely” the system appearing in Spinoza’s Opera posthuma, that is to say, in the Ethics.
4 The Metaphysics of the Material World

The MHR does not focus exclusively on the Spinozistic hypothesis that
God is extended substance, and indeed includes several criticisms of the
view in Spinoza that our thoughts must be attributed to God as thinking
substance.7 Nonetheless, objections to the view that God is extended play a
prominent role not only in the MHR, but also in the three remarks defending
it that were added to the second edition. Indeed, in the last of these additional
remarks (rem. EE) Bayle himself draws attention to the fact that he attacked
Spinoza’s view that extension is “a substance unique in number . . . rather
than any other part of the system because I know that Spinozists will say that
the difficulties do not consist in this” (IV.270b). I begin with Bayle’s argument
in the MHR that material extension cannot be a substance unique in number,
and then consider what for our purposes is a crucial supplementation of this
argument in one of the remarks added to the second edition.

1.1.2. The First Edition Remark

Bayle’s explanation in the MHR of why he thinks Spinoza’s material monism

is monstrous appeals to five different considerations. The first two of these,
which I highlight here, emphasizes features of material extension that pre-
clude the identification of God with the material universe as a whole.
According to the first consideration,

it is impossible that the [material] universe be one unique substance, for

everything that is extended necessarily has parts, and everything that has
parts is composite; and since the parts of extension do not subsist in one an-
other, it must be the case either that extension in general is not a substance,
or that each part of extension is a particular substance distinct from the
others. (DHC, “Spinoza,” rem. N, IV.259b)

Bayle insists that if Spinoza were to hold that “extension in general” is not
a substance, he would be committed to the conclusion that the divine sub-
stance is itself unextended. But how then could God be related to extension?

7 The other three considerations against Spinoza’s monism that Bayle offers in the MHR are, in

order: (1) “God cannot be the subject of inherence of men’s thoughts since these thoughts are con-
trary to one another” (DHC, “Spinoza,” rem. N, IV.260b); (2) “Another proof of what is said, drawn
from the wickedness of man’s thoughts” (IV.261a); and (3) “Another proof of what is said above,
drawn from the misery of man” (IV.261b). For more on consideration (1), see the epilogue, around
note 11.
 Bayle’s Narrative 5

Not as its creator, since Spinoza rejects the notion of creation. But also not
as its subject of inherence, since an unextended substance “cannot become
the subject of three dimensions” (IV.259b). Indeed, it seems that if exten-
sion exists, it must subsist without a subject, and so itself count as a sub-
stance.8 Insofar as God is the only substance, he must be identified with
self-​subsisting extension. But since the parts of extension do not subsist in
each other, they must themselves be distinct substances: the second disjunct
in the passage cited earlier.9
When he argues subsequently for the substantiality of the parts of exten-
sion, however, Bayle appeals not to the fact that they do not subsist in each
other, but rather to the principle of “the scholastics” that “when one can af-
firm of a thing . . . what one cannot affirm of another, they are distinct.”10 But
in the case of the twelve one-​inch parts of a foot of extension, one can say that
they are distinct in this sense, since “I can affirm of the fifth that it is contig-
uous to the sixth, and I deny this of the first, the second, and so on” (IV.259b).
It is perhaps not immediately evident how the fact that the one-​inch parts
have distinguishable features shows that they do not subsist in each other.
After all, even if they did so subsist the fact that the relation of subsisting in
is asymmetrical would suffice to distinguish the part subsisting in another
part from that part in which it subsists. However, Bayle has another reason to
deny that such a relation holds among parts that involves the principle that
“things that can be separated from one another with regard to time and place
are distinct.” The applicability of this principle to the case of the parts of a
one-​foot portion of extension, according to Bayle, is clear from the fact that
“I can transpose the sixth to the place of the twelfth. It can then be separated
from the fifth” (IV.259b). Since the parts can exist in separation, it cannot
be the case that they subsist in each other. Rather, the foot-​long extension is

8 In his Cours de logique, used in his courses at the Protestant Academy in Sedan and the École

Illustre in Rotterdam, Bayle defines substance as “that whose existence requires no other thing in
which it inheres [inhæreat]” (OD IV.228). As we will discover in subsequent chapters, however, there
are different characterizations of substance in Spinoza as well as in Suárez and Descartes.
9 The objection that an extended God must be composite is not original with Bayle. One finds it,

for instance, in the Cartesian critique of Spinoza in Pierre Poiret’s Cogitationes raionales; see Poiret
1685: 33–​34n2. In fact, in a Dissertatio nova published with the third edition of his Cogitationes
rationales, Poiret charged that Bayle had plagiarized his discussion of Spinoza; see Poiret 1715: 25.
We do know that Bayle had engaged with the 1685 edition of Poiret’s text from a set of Objectiones to
it, published anonymously in 1685. For discussion of this engagement, see Mori 1999: ch. 2, which
includes an extended argument against the claim in Labrousse 1964: 146 that this text is not primarily
the work of Bayle.
10 This is related to the scholastic notion of a “real distinction.” I discuss Suárez’s version of this no-

tion in §2.2.1.
6 The Metaphysics of the Material World

divisible into distinct one-​inch parts. But if this is so, that extension must be
composed of these parts, and therefore cannot be a simple being.
Spinoza indicates in his Ethics that particular portions of extension are
more properly considered to be modifications than parts of God as extended
substance.11 However, for Bayle this is merely a verbal dodge:

Let him avoid as much as he wants the word part; let him substitute as much
as he wants the word modality or modification; what does this accomplish?
Will the ideas attached to the word part vanish? Will they not be applied to
the word modification? Are the signs and characteristics of difference less
real or less evident when matter is divided into modifications than when it
is divided into parts? We see all that. The idea of matter still continues to be
that of a composite being, that of a collection of several substances. (DHC,
“Spinoza,” rem. N, IV.260a)

As long as the one-​inch sections compose the one-​foot extension, it does not
matter whether the former are characterized as modifications or as parts. It
remains the case that the extension is merely a composite whole and not the
simple being that Spinoza himself admits that God must be.
In the article in his Dictionaire on Zeno of Elea, Bayle notes that one in-
teresting consequence of the composite nature of extension is that material
objects, including the material world as a whole, can only be aggregates of
parts. Bayle claims there:

Every extension is composed of parts that are distinct and, consequently,

separable from one another; from which it follows that if God were ex-
tended, he would be not simple, immutable, and properly infinite being,
but an assemblage of beings, ens per agregationem, each of which would be
finite, even though all of them together would be unlimited. He would be
like the material world, which, in the Cartesian theory, has an infinite ex-
tension. (DHC, “Zenon d’Élée,” rem. I, IV.544b)

Gianluca Mori has insisted that Bayle’s discussion in the Zeno article in fact
“thwarts the refutation of Spinoza” insofar as it “presupposes the existence

11 See the stipulation in Ethics IIdef1 that “by body I understand a mode that in a certain and deter-

minate way expresses God’s essence insofar as he is considered an extended thing” (G II.84). I return
to this Spinozistic characterization of body in c­ hapter 6, as well as to the view in E Ip12–​13 (G II.55–​
56) that God as extended substance is absolutely indivisible.
 Bayle’s Narrative 7

of a ‘continuous whole’ that is reminiscent of the unique substance of the

Ethics” (Mori 1999: 163–​64). What renders the refutation of Spinoza prob-
lematic, I take it, is that Bayle himself questions in this article the intelligi-
bility of a continuum that is divisible into infinitely many parts.12 But even
if, as Mori claims, Bayle “does not refrain from placing in doubt the principal
axioms of Cartesianism” (164),13 it is far from clear that this move involves
a “thwarting” of the refutation of Spinoza. For Bayle seems to be offering
an internal critique of Spinoza’s material monism. That is to say, his point
is that on the Cartesian view of extension that Spinoza himself accepts, the
thesis that God is a simple being that is nonetheless extended is ruled out.
Admittedly, that Bayle is offering this sort of critique is perhaps not entirely
clear from what he says in the MHR, for he makes no explicit mention of
Descartes or Cartesianism in that particular text. The emphasis is rather on
the views of the scholastics, in particular, concerning the conditions for a
“real distinction” among different parts of extension. However, the impor-
tance of Cartesianism for Bayle’s refutation of Spinoza’s material monism
will become clear from the consideration later of one of the second edition
remarks that he added to his Spinoza article.
The passage I have cited from the Zeno article mentions God’s simplicity
and immutability, but only the former is crucial for Bayle’s argument that
the composite nature of extension precludes its identification with God.
Divine immutability is important for Bayle’s second argument against such
an identification. Here again the divisibility of extension into parts plays an
important role, though what is key in this case is not that the parts compose
extension, but rather that any division of material parts requires a change in
matter. By identifying God with the material world, Bayle charges, Spinoza
“is reducing him to the condition of matter, the lowest of all beings, and the
one almost all the ancient philosophers placed immediately above nonbeing”
(DHC, “Spinoza,” rem. N, IV.260b). This lowly condition derives from the
fact that matter is “the theater of all sorts of changes, the battleground of

12 Citing the words of Pierre Nicole, Bayle concludes that “all the strength of the mind of man is

forced to succumb to the smallest atom of matter and admit that it sees clearly that the atom is in-
finitely divisible without being able to understand how this can be the case” (DHC, “Zenon d’Élée,”
rem. G, IV.542b).
13 There is also the possibility here that even though Bayle places in doubt the notion of infinitely

divisible Cartesian extension, he nonetheless thinks that this provides the best understanding of the
material world. Indeed, in a Dissertatio dating from 1680, Bayle defends the Cartesian claim that
the essence of body consists in divisible extension against the scholastic objections offered in the
Sentimens de Monsieur Descartes touchant l’essence et les proprietez du corps (1680) of Louis de la Ville
(pseudonym of Le Valois, S. J.). For the Dissertatio, see OD IV.109–​45.
8 The Metaphysics of the Material World

contrary causes, the subject of all corruptions and all generations, in a word,
the being whose nature is most incompatible with the immutability of God”
(IV.260b).
Bayle attributes to the “Spinozists” the response that matter cannot be di-
vided insofar as real division requires that “one of its portions be separated
from the others by empty spaces, which never happens” (IV.260a).14 However,
for Bayle this Spinozistic understanding of real division is entirely spurious
since it “overthrows both our ideas and our language when one asserts to
us that matter reduced to cinders and smoke is not divided” (IV.260a). Even
if burning does not involve a separation of material parts by empty spaces,
there is nonetheless in this case some change in those parts that is properly
described as material division. And this division, in turn, is properly under-
stood to involve a change internal to material substance.
We have seen that with respect to the issue of the composition of extension,
Bayle insists that there is no significance to Spinoza’s claim that portions of
matter are merely modes. With respect to the issue of material division, how-
ever, he holds that the identification of the portions with modifications in
fact undermines the Spinozistic position. For once the portions are so iden-
tified, it must be admitted that a change in the portions involves a change in
the material substance these portions modify. As Bayle expresses the point:

The forms produced in matter are united to it internally and intimately

[intérieurement et pénétrativement]; it is their subject of inherence, and ac-
cording to sound philosophy there is no distinction between it and matter
than that which is recognized between modes and the thing modified.
From which it follows that the God of the Spinozists is an actually changing
nature, which continually passes through different states that differ inter-
nally and really from the others. It is therefore not at all the supremely per-
fect being, in whom there is neither a shadow of change nor any variation.
(IV.260b; citing James 1:17)

This objection to Spinoza’s identification of God with extended matter

depends on a specific understanding of the technical notion of modifica-
tion. In particular, it is assumed that this notion requires that changes in the
modifications of a thing involve changes in the subject they modify. Since
God as extended substance is the subject of changing modifications, God

14 Cf. the discussion of Spinoza’s own “vacuum argument” in §5.2.2.

 Bayle’s Narrative 9

himself must be mutable, contrary to the conception—​shared by Spinoza—​

of God as a wholly immutable being. In order to defend this line of objection,
Bayle must further defend the understanding of the notion of modification
that underlies it. In fact, this is precisely what he attempts to do in one of the
remarks from the Spinoza article that he added to the second edition of the
Dictionaire.

1.1.3. The Second Edition Defense

In the second edition version of the Spinoza article, Bayle inserts the promise
of a “supplement” to what he wrote earlier that consists in part in “the ex-
amination of the question whether it is true, as I have been told that sev-
eral people claim, that I have not understood Spinoza’s theory at all (DD)”
(DHC, “Spinoza,” IV.267–​68). In the new remark DD, Bayle emphasizes in
particular the charge that he has misunderstood Spinoza’s conception of the
modifications of divine substance. On one version of this charge, what Bayle
fails to understand is that Spinoza “had the same conception as Descartes of
matter (or extension)” and that he simply called this matter a modification
rather than a substance “because he believed that a substance is a being that
does not depend on any cause” (DHC, “Spinoza,” rem. DD, IV.269a). Thus,
neither the divisibility of matter nor its mutability can count against the view
that God is the only being that is independent of all other causes, and so is the
only substance. Bayle concedes that if this understanding of Spinoza is cor-
rect, “I admit that I have falsely accused him, and attributed to him a position
that he did not hold” (IV.269a).
On the basis of this last concession, Geneviève Brykman has claimed
that the attack on Spinoza’s monism in the first edition of the Dictionaire is
replaced in the second edition by “an objection addressed to Descartes and
the Cartesians about the ambiguity of the word ‘modification’,” an objection
from which Spinoza himself “emerges unscathed” (Brykman 1988: 269–​
70).15 However, I think that there is a misunderstanding here of the dialectic
in Bayle’s text. It is significant that immediately following his concession,
Bayle adds: “This is what I must now consider” (IV.269a). He is admitting not
that the alternative interpretation of Spinoza is correct, but only that if it is

15 According to Brykman, the objective in the second edition version of the Spinoza article is “to

put on trial, not Spinoza, but human reason” (Brykman 1988: 269).
10 The Metaphysics of the Material World

correct (which still needs to be shown), then he is mistaken. Moreover, Bayle

offers reasons for thinking that it is this alternative interpretation rather than
his own that is at fault. For instance, he holds that if Spinoza were to admit as
a material modification a created substance that does not inhere in God, he
would be saddled with the view that there are “creatures distinct from divine
substance and who have been made either out of nothing or from a matter
distinct from God” (IV.269a). Yet Bayle repeats his insistence from the first
edition that Spinoza himself rejects creation ex nihilo, and he now adds that
since Spinoza holds that extension is an attribute of God, he must grant that
“the particular varieties of extension, which make up the sun, earth, trees,
bodies of beasts, bodies of men, and so on, are in God in the way in which the
school philosophers suppose that they are in prime matter” (IV.269b). The
identification of God’s extension with scholastic prime matter is a develop-
ment of the comment in the MHR that to make God extended is to make him
“the subject of all corruptions and all generations” (IV.260b).16 Thus in the
second edition there is no capitulation to the critic, but rather an insistence
that Spinoza must have held that the matter that underlies all change is God’s
own substance, just as Bayle had supposed from the beginning.
In order to further defend his understanding of Spinoza, Bayle offers a par-
ticular narrative concerning the emergence of the conception of modes that
I have highlighted previously. In the beginning, so Bayle’s story goes, there
was the foundational metaphysical position that “the idea of being contains,
immediately under it, two species, substance and accident, and that sub-
stance subsists through itself, ens per se subsistens, and that accident subsists
in another being, ens in alio” (IV.268b). More specifically, the claim is that an
accident is something that “depends so essentially on its subject of inhesion
that it could not subsist without it” (IV.268b). Bayle contends that this “old
idea” derives from Aristotle, who held that accidents “are of such a nature
that they are no part of their subject, that they cannot exist without it, and
that the subject can lose them without prejudice to its existence” (IV.269a).17
The second portion of Bayle’s story involves a rejection of this Aristotelian
conception of accidents that is due to “the miserable disputes that have di-
vided Christendom” (IV.269a), and in particular to the post-​Reformation
dispute between Catholics and Protestants over the doctrine of the Eucharist.

16 As I indicate in §1.2.2, however, Aristotle himself claims explicitly in the Metaphysics that a pur-

portedly characterless matter that underlies all change is not a legitimate candidate for substance.
17 Bayle is drawing here on Aristotle’s characterization of accidents in his Categories. I return to this

characterization in §1.2.1.
 Bayle’s Narrative 11

According to Catholic doctrine, as codified during the thirteenth session of

the Council of Trent (1551), after the words of consecration the entire sub-
stance of the bread and wine is converted by means of “transubstantiation”
into the substance of the body and blood of Jesus Christ, “with only the spe-
cies [specie] of the bread and wine remaining” (Denzinger 1963: 389). The
“species” here are just the sensible accidents of the Eucharistic elements, for
instance, their particular size, color, taste, and odor. Catholic dogma requires
that after consecration these accidents inhere in no substance: neither in the
substance of the elements, which no longer exists after consecration, nor
in the newly substituted substance of Christ’s body and blood, which is not
suitable to support such accidents. Scholastics were thereby led by this (to
Bayle’s mind, misguided)18 view of the Eucharist to admit “a real distinction
between a substance and its accidents, and a reciprocal separability between
those species of beings, which would result in the fact that each of them could
exist without the other” (IV.269a).
Yet there is a third portion of the story that involves the introduction of the
notion of modification that is crucial for Bayle’s interpretation of Spinoza.
According to this part, some of the scholastics who posited “real accidents”
that are really distinct from the substances in which they inhere nonetheless
came to allow “that there were accidents whose distinction from their subject
was not real, and which could not subsist outside of it” (IV.269a). The latter
accidents they called modes, and it is this notion of mode that survived the
rejection of scholasticism in the modern period. As Bayle tells us, “Descartes,
Gassendi, and, in general, all those who have abandoned scholastic philos-
ophy, have denied that an accident is separable from a subject in such a way
that it could subsist after its separation, and have ascribed to all accidents the
nature of those that are called modes, and have employed the term mode, mo-
dality, or modification, rather than that of accident” (IV.269a). According to
this story, then, modes were introduced in a later scholastic period as a subset
of accidents that are distinguished by their inseparability from their subjects,
but that later replaced real accidents in the post-​scholastic modern era.

18 There is some dispute in the literature over whether Bayle is a fideistic Calvinist or an ironic

atheist. For the latter position, see, for instance, Mori 1999 and Israel 2001: pt. II; for the former,
see Labrousse 1964: ch. 10. (Labrousse 1964 is the companion volume to Labrousse 1963.) There is
also an excellent summary of the fideistic interpretation in Labrousse 1983. Nonetheless, both sides
in this dispute can agree that Bayle is committed to rejecting this Catholic doctrine. In fact, Bayle
ridicules Spinoza’s monism at one point by noting that it involves an abuse of words that is similar
to what one finds in the case of the defenders of transubstantiation; see DHC, “Spinoza,” rem. CC,
IV.267a–​b.
12 The Metaphysics of the Material World

This story does not focus exclusively on Descartes’s contribution to this

modern turn, since the move from real accidents to modes involves “all those
who have abandoned scholastic philosophy” (IV.269a), including Gassendi,
for instance, as well as Descartes. However, it is Descartes’s involvement that
is most crucial with respect to Bayle’s interpretation of Spinoza, since Bayle
takes the fact that “Spinoza had been a great Cartesian” to provide reason to
suppose that by modification of substance “he only understood a way of being
that has the same relation to substance as shape, motion, rest, and location
have to matter” (IV.269a). According to Bayle, Descartes—​and so Spinoza—​
can be understood to return to an Aristotelian conception of accidents in
turning away from the deviant scholastic notion of separable real accidents.
To attribute any other notion of modification to Spinoza is to overlook his
dependence on Descartes for the basic elements of his metaphysics.
The historical story that Bayle tells us is supposed to show that Spinoza
accepts the result that a mode “depends so essentially on its subject of inhe-
sion that it could not subsist without it” (DHC, “Spinoza,” rem. DD, IV.268b).
But the two objections in the MHR that I have emphasized suggest two dif-
ferent ways in which particular bodies could be “in” God as extended sub-
stance. First, there is the suggestion—​particularly in the first edition of the
Spinoza article—​that bodies are in extended substance in the way in which
parts are in the whole they compose. It is this suggestion that is supposed to
reveal the incompatibility of extension with God’s simplicity, that is to say,
with his incomposite nature. Yet there is also the suggestion, particularly in
the second edition version of the article, that bodies are in extended sub-
stance in the way in which modifications such as size, shape, and motion are
in the extended subject they modify. This suggestion is the source of the ob-
jection that extension is incompatible with the immutability that is essential
to God.
One could well ask whether these suggestions track Spinoza’s own con-
ception of the relation of particular bodies to God as extended substance.
But another question is how the conception of bodies as parts is supposed to
be related to the conception of bodies as modifications. Is there a single kind
of relation here, or is the relation itself irreducibly disjunctive, with bodily
aspects of extended substance being either composing parts or modifying
qualities? In my subsequent discussion, I attempt to address these questions
concerning the relations of the parts of bodies to their modes. I follow
Bayle’s lead in offering a genealogy of the categories of accident, mode, and
substance—​as well as the categories of part and whole—​that starts with
 Bayle’s Narrative 13

Aristotle’s metaphysics of substance and ends with Spinoza’s substance

monism. The emphasis here on the history of the application of these cate-
gories to the case of the material world is in fact in line with Bayle’s treatment
in the Spinoza article. We will discover that Bayle’s historical narrative yields
several important insights, especially with respect to its view of the intro-
duction in later scholasticism of the category of bodily modes. However, as
I hope to show presently, this narrative does not perfectly fit what Aristotle
himself has to say about the nature of material substance and its relation to
its accidents.

1.2. Aristotle’s Metaphysics of the Material World

There are two main texts in Aristotle that are relevant to the use that
Bayle makes of him in his critique of Spinoza, namely, the Categories and
Metaphysics Zeta. The proper interpretation of these texts is a hotly contested
issue in the literature, especially in the case of the latter, one of the most diffi-
cult portions of the Aristotelian corpus. My purpose in this section is neither
to offer a comprehensive interpretation of these two texts nor to settle the in-
terpretive disputes in any authoritative way.19 Rather, my much more modest
task is to draw attention to the fact that Aristotle’s claims in the Categories and
Metaphysics Zeta introduce complications for the view of Aristotle that Bayle
offers us. In particular, I am concerned to show (a) that in the Categories the
notion of accident cannot simply be equated with the notion of mode that
Bayle highlights in his discussion of Spinoza; and (b) that in Metaphysics Zeta
Aristotle indicates—​contrary to what the discussion of him in Bayle may
suggest—​that in its primary sense a material substance is not the matter that
serves as the ultimate subject of material alterations, but rather the substan-
tial form that is identical to a fundamental essence. In §1.2.1, I discuss result
(a), which focuses on the Categories, and then I turn in §1.2.2 to result (b),
which concerns Metaphysics Zeta.

19 For surveys of the literature on the Categories and the Metaphysics, see Studtman 2013, for the

former, and Gill 2005 and Cohen 2016, for the latter.
14 The Metaphysics of the Material World

1.2.1. Categories: Substance and Accident

It is a common view that the Categories pre-​dates the Metaphysics. Though

I indicate later that this view has been challenged in the recent literature,
I nonetheless think it natural for us to start with the former text since it is di-
rectly linked to the story Bayle tells in the Spinoza article about the develop-
ment of substance-​mode metaphysics. After a brief discussion of homonyms,
synonyms, and paronyms, the Categories provides the following distinction
among the types of “things that there are” (ta onta) (Cat II, 1a17–​1b9; CW I.3):

(I) What is neither “said of ” (legetai) nor “in” (en) any “subject”
(hypokeimenon);
(II) What is said of some subject but is not in any subject;
(III) What is not said of but is in a subject; and
(IV) What is both said of and is in a subject.

Items of types I and II count as “substances” (ousiai), whereas items of types

III and IV count as “accidents” (sumbebekoi). Among the substances, those
of type I are said to be “primary” (protai) substances, or what are substances
in the most fundamental sense. The fact that Aristotle offers as examples “the
individual man or the individual horse” indicates that he takes familiar mate-
rial objects to be paradigmatic primary substances. These objects are said to
be primary because they are ultimate subjects that can neither be said of nor
be in any other subject (Cat V, 2a35–​36; CW I.5).
Type II items, by contrast, are “secondary” (deuterai) substances,
examples of which are the species man and the genus animal. Whereas the
primary substance of which these secondary substances are predicated is
“individual and numerically one,” the secondary substances are universal
insofar as they are “said of many things” (Cat V, 3b11–​12; CW I.6). Even so,
these secondary substances indicate what is essential to the subject of which
they are said.
In contrast, there are two types of accidental entities—​namely, types III
and IV—​that are “in a subject.” As examples of type III accidents, Aristotle
offers “individual knowledge-​of-​grammar” and “individual white.” The fact
that these types of accidents are not said of their subjects distinguishes them
from type IV accidents. The example of the latter sort of accident is know-
ledge, where the knowledge is in a subject but is also said of a particular kind
of knowledge-​of-​grammar (Cat II, 1b1–​2; CW I.3).
 Bayle’s Narrative 15

In a passage from the Categories that Bayle himself cites in his Spinoza
article, Aristotle attempts to explain the notion of accident by noting that
“by ‘in a subject’ I mean what is in something, not as a part, and cannot exist
separately from it” (Cat II, 1a24–​25; CW I.3).20 We seem to have here not
a definition of an accident, but an indication of two negative conditions
that are necessary for being an accident, both of which require comment.21
Sometimes when Aristotle refers to parts in the Categories, he has in mind
genera, species, and differentia, that is, conceptual parts of definitions.22
Insofar as accidents are accidental to the subject in which they inhere, they
would not count as parts of a definition of a subject, which involve secondary
substances that are said of that subject. Nonetheless, it seems that the phys-
ical parts that compose a material object are themselves substances rather
than accidents. After all, such parts would seem to meet the condition in the
Categories for being a primary substance, namely, being an ultimate subject
of accidents. Indeed, there is a reference in this text to “a head or a hand or
any such substance” (Cat VII, 8b15; CW I.14).
This account of physical parts is hardly explicit in the Categories, and when
discussing the view that such parts are substances, Bayle cites the scholastics
rather than Aristotle.23 When Bayle is concerned to link Aristotle to early
modern metaphysics, he emphasizes the second negative condition for
being an accident, namely, the inability to exist apart from a subject. Bayle’s
assumption that Aristotelian accidents are inseparable from a particular
primary substance is in line with a common reading of Aristotle in the liter-
ature, represented prominently in the work of J. L. Ackrill. On this reading,
an accident is a “non-​repeatable individual” that cannot exist apart from the
particular primary substance in which it inheres. For instance, the individual
whiteness that inheres in Socrates is inseparable from him, and so is numer-
ically distinct from the individual whiteness that inheres in Callias and that
therefore is inseparable from him. Yet G. E. L. Owen has famously opposed
what he calls the “dogma” that only non-​repeatable individual instances of an
accident can inhere in a particular subject.24 As Owen indicates, one reason

20 For Bayle’s citation, see the passage from the Spinoza article quoted at note 17 in §1.1.3.
21 Aristotle does offer various definitions of accidents elsewhere, particularly in the Topics and
Metaphysics. For a discussion of the relevant texts that emphasizes the failure to isolate a single satis-
factory definition, see Ebert 1998.
22 As indicated in Frede 1987: 61–​62.
23 There is some reason for caution in the attribution of this view to Aristotle given that—​as we will

see in §1.2.2, after note 31—​he indicates in Metaphysics Zeta that the physical parts that compose a
substance are merely potential rather than actual substances.
24 Owen 1965. I draw also on the development of Owen’s position in Frede 1987.
16 The Metaphysics of the Material World

to reject this dogma is that the textual evidence from the Categories weighs
heavily against it. For example, Aristotle claims in this text that just as “an-
imal is predicated of man, and therefore also of the individual men,” so also
“color is in body, and therefore also in an individual body; for if it were not
in some individual body it would not be in body at all” (Cat V, 2a37–​2b3; CW
I.5). Just as the animality that is predicated of an individual human being
is not restricted to that subject, so the color that is in an individual body is
not restricted to that particular body. This passage makes clear, contrary
to Ackrill’s view, that color, conceived as a universal akin to animality, can
nonetheless be in an individual subject. When Aristotle says that color is an
accident inseparable from a subject, then, he must mean that it cannot exist
apart from any individual subject of a certain type, namely, the type body.25
However, Owen argues not only that something recurrent can exist in an
individual subject, but also that only such a thing can be an accident. The test
case here is type III accidents, which Owen takes to be not non-​recurrent
individuals, pace Ackrill, but general properties that are not further determi-
nable. The fact that even these kinds of accidents are universal may seem to
be indicated by the remark in the Categories that “as the primary substances
stand to everything else, so the species and genera of the primary substances
stand to all the rest: all the rest are predicated of these” (Cat V, 3a2–​4; CW I.5;
my emphasis). The indication here seems to be that everything in particulars
can be said of others, and thus are universal in the same way that type IV
accidents are.26
Yet even if Owen is wrong and there is room in Aristotle’s Categories
for type III accidents that are non-​repeatable individuals, it is nonetheless
clear in this text that not all accidents—​that is, things in a subject—​are such
individuals. And this result suffices for the point that Aristotle’s own cate-
gory of accident is not a perfect match for the category of modification that
is central to Bayle’s discussion of Spinoza. The modes with which Bayle is
concerned are so dependent on their particular subjects of inhesion that they
could not exist without them. It is a particular motion that inheres in, and
is inseparable from, a particular body in motion. Though it may perhaps be
granted to Ackrill that this understanding of modes fits some of the examples
of accidents that Aristotle offers in the Categories, it cannot be granted to him
that it fits all of these examples, which include as well recurrent universal

25As proposed in Frede 1987: 58–​63.

26For this point, see Loux 1991. But cf. the defense of a modified version of Ackrill’s view in Wedin
2000: ch. 2.
 Bayle’s Narrative 17

accidents that are inseparable only from a subject of a certain type. To this ex-
tent, then, we cannot follow Bayle in saying that when Descartes and Spinoza
held that modes are inseparable from the particular substance in which they
inhere, they were simply returning to Aristotle’s original conception of an
accident. Indeed, in the chapters that follow it will become clear that their
understanding of modes depends essentially on later scholastic innovations
that have no clear basis in Aristotle himself.

1.2.2. Metaphysics Zeta: Matter and Form

In the Categories, Aristotle notes that one distinctive feature of a primary

substance is that it is both “numerically one and the same” and also “able
to receive contraries” (Cat V, 4a10–​12; CW 7). Thus, accidental change is to
be analyzed in terms of the successive reception of contrary accidents in the
same underlying subject, as when Socrates, who is pale at one time, becomes
dark at another. However, a similar analysis does not seem to be possible in
the case of substantial generation or corruption, that is, the production of
one substance by means of the destruction of another. For in this case no pri-
mary substance can serve as the continuing subject underlying the change.
It is to address this sort of change that Aristotle introduces in his Physics
a hylomorphic structure for individual substances. Whereas the Categories
treats such substances as unanalyzable subjects of predication and inher-
ence, the Physics treats them as composites of “form” (morphê) and “matter”
(hulê). This new conception of material substance allows for an analysis of
substantial change that is structurally similar to the analysis in the Categories
of accidental change. For just as the Categories explains accidental change in
terms of the replacement of one accident by another in a persisting primary
substance, so the Physics explains substantial change in terms of the replace-
ment of one substantial form by another in the persisting material subject of
the change.27
The introduction of the hylomorphic conception of material substance
sets the stage for the discussion of substance in Metaphysics Zeta. As in the
case of the Categories, this discussion begins with a consideration of ordinary

27 Phy I.7, 190b17–​29; CW I.325. For discussion of the account of generation in this text, see Gill

1989: ch. 3.
18 The Metaphysics of the Material World

material objects. Thus, toward the beginning of Metaphysics Zeta, Aristotle

observes that

substance is thought to belong most obviously to bodies; and so we say that

both animals and plants and their parts are substances, and so are natural
bodies such as fire and water and earth and everything of this sort, and all
things that are parts of these or are composed of these (either of parts or
of whole bodies), e.g., the heaven and its parts, stars and moon and sun.
(VII.2, 1028b9–​13; CW II.1624)28

Though elsewhere in Metaphysics Zeta Aristotle is concerned with concep-

tual parts of substances,29 here the focus is on the physical parts that com-
pose a material object, or what the scholastics will later call “integral” parts of
such an object.30 These parts are to be distinguished in turn from the matter
and form that, on the view in the Metaphysics, metaphysically constitute but
do not physically compose the material substance.31
It is clear enough that the physical parts of material substances are not
accidents, but rather substances of some kind. However, elsewhere in
Metaphysics Zeta Aristotle importantly qualifies the sort of substantiality in-
volved here. There he claims that

a substance cannot consist of substances present in it actually (for things

that are thus actually two are never actually one, though if they are poten-
tially two, they can be one, e.g., the double line consists of two halves—​
potentially; for the actualization of the halves divides them from one
another; therefore, if the substance is one, it will not consist of substances
present in it). (Met VII.13, 1039a3–​11; CW II.1640)

28 The passage continues by noting the need to consider whether there are substances separate

from sensible things, something that admittedly was not a pressing issue in the Categories. Indeed,
Michael Frede has gone so far as to claim that in the Metaphysics “the idea of substance applies prima-
rily to pure substantial forms, like God” (Frede 1987: 71).
29 Particularly in §13, where he is concerned to argue against the Platonic view that genera and spe-

cies are themselves primary substances.

30 See §3.2 for Suárez’s account of integral parts.
31 See the distinction in Metaphysics Zeta between the sense in which a part “measures another in

respect of quantity” and the sense in which matter and form are parts of a material substance (VII.10,
1034b4–​1035b5; CW II.1634). Scholastics typically call the latter “essential” parts. For Suárez’s view
of such parts, see §2.3.1.
 Bayle’s Narrative 19

The suggestion is that the physical parts of a substance are themselves only
potentially distinct substances that are unified in a single actual substance.
The parts count as actual substances only when actual division frees them
from their dependence on other parts of the whole they all compose. As we
will discover, the complications for the substantiality of integral parts that are
introduced by their interdependence do not disappear in later scholastic and
early modern philosophy.32
In the Categories, the unity of the primary substance is simply taken as
a given. However, there is an acknowledgment in the Metaphysics that ma-
terial substances are composed out of physical parts that are at least poten-
tially substances. Moreover, the hylomorphic analysis of material substance,
which this text assumes, raises the question of how we are to consider the
metaphysical constituents of such substances. In a famous passage from the
third section of Zeta, Aristotle begins with a characterization of substance
that is close to one used in the Categories to describe primary substance,
namely, “the substratum . . . of which other things are predicated, while it is
itself not predicated of anything” (1029a35–​37; CW II.1624). Given the hy-
lomorphic analysis of material substance, however, there is some question
what the substratum could be: “In one sense matter is said to be of the nature
of substratum, in another, shape [that is, form], and in a third sense, the com-
pound of these” (1029a1–​3; CW II.1624). Aristotle then notes that given the
characterization of substance as substratum, it seems that “matter becomes
substance” insofar as it underlies all change (1029a10–​26; CW II.1625).
However, the conclusion here is that “this is impossible” since a substance
must be both “separate” (chôriston) and “some this” (tode ti).
This is a particularly difficult passage, and I do not presume here to offer
a definitive interpretation of it.33 Nonetheless, for our purposes the Zeta
Passage (as I call it) is worth exploring a bit in light of the claim in Bayle
that Spinozistic extended substance is best understood in terms of the
Aristotelian “prime matter” that serves as “the subject of all corruptions
and all generations” (“Spinoza,” rem. DD, IV.269b). It might seem initially
that the matter to which Aristotle refers in the Zeta Passage just is this sort
of prime matter. For this matter is defined as what remains “when all else
is taken away,” which leaves something that is “neither a particular thing

32See the discussion of Suárez in §3.2.2, of Descartes in §5.2.2, and of Spinoza in §7.1.1.
33For different interpretations of the view in this passage, see, for instance, Gill 1989: ch. 1; Loux
1991: ch. 2; and Wedin 2000: ch. 5.
20 The Metaphysics of the Material World

nor of a particular quantity nor otherwise positively characterized; nor yet

negatively, for negations will also belong to it only by accident” (Met VII.3,
1029a11–​2, 24–​26; CW II.1625). The ultimate subject of material properties
and processes would thus appear to be something that cannot be character-
ized beyond claiming that it is an ultimate material subject.
However, the identification of this sort of subject with Spinozistic ex-
tended substance is problematic for two reasons. First, Aristotle himself
claims in the Zeta Passage that it is “impossible” that matter in this sense is
substance; thus, it cannot be an extended substance. In addition, there is the
fact that insofar as we strip away even extension when considering the ulti-
mate material substrate, such a substrate would not be appropriately identi-
fied with extended substance. The prime matter that Bayle has in mind is not
the sort of matter that Aristotle is considering, but rather a wholly determi-
nable extension.
The fact that there is no match here might not be of crucial importance in
the end insofar as Aristotle seems to indicate in the Zeta Passage that he is
not committed to the existence of a characterless material substrate. After of-
fering his characterization of this substrate, for instance, Aristotle attributes
it to “those who adopt this point of view” (1028a27; CW II.1625), thus ap-
parently distancing himself from the position that there is a need to posit
this sort of matter.34 Yet there is the view that Aristotle in fact accepts the
existence of an ultimate material substrate that has spatial extension as an
essential feature.35 Such a substrate would seem to be a better match for the
sort of prime matter Bayle has in mind than the matter with which Aristotle
is concerned in the Zeta Passage.
The claim that Aristotle is committed to a single extended prime matter
is controversial. For some commentators, the indication in his texts is that
the four sublunar elements and the one celestial element are the most funda-
mental kinds of matter, with no underlying matter common to them.36 But
even if Aristotle did accept an extended matter common to the elements, it

34 Here I am following the reading in Gill 1989: 23–​26. But cf. Loux’s argument (1991: 239–​52)

that Aristotle’s position in the Metaphysics commits him to the existence of a characterless material
substratum.
35 See Cohen 1984. However, Gill has argued that the sort of prime matter that Cohen attributes

to Aristotle is subject to the same objections that Aristotle himself raised against the single ultimate
substratum posited by the earlier materialists; see Gill 1989: 45n9.
36 For an extended defense of this position that focuses on the case of the four sublunar elements,

see Gill 1989: ch. 2 and app. It is perhaps significant here that when Aristotle speaks of the reduction
of separated parts of animals in the passage from Metaphysics VII.16 cited earlier, he refers to a reduc-
tion to the four elements, and not to any common matter.
 Bayle’s Narrative 21

seems that he would still need to deny that this matter counts as substance.
Although he takes the sublunar elements to be fundamental in some sense,
for instance, Aristotle claims in Metaphysics Zeta that they exist merely “like
a heap before [they are] fused by heat and some one thing is made out of the
bits” (Met VII.16, 1045b5–​6; CW I.1642). Likewise, it seems, any common
matter that Aristotle posited would exist as a mere heap prior to being
worked up into the matter of a composite substance. Insofar as this is the
case, such matter would fail to meet one of the conditions of substantiality in
the Zeta Passage, namely, that substance be actually “some this.”
The other condition cited in this passage is that substance be “separate.”
Elsewhere in the Metaphysics Aristotle distinguishes the separability of “the
formula or form,” which is capable of being “separately formulated,” and the
separability of the composite of form and matter, which is “capable of sepa-
rate existence” (Met VIII.1, 1042a28; CW II.1645). Given his view that sub-
stantial form is inseparable from matter, Aristotle must deny that this form
is separable in existence. Nonetheless, in the context of his discussion in the
Metaphysics, it is crucial that form is separable in formulation. For one main
conclusion in this text is that “what we seek is the cause, i.e., the form, by
reason of which the matter is some definite substance; and this is the sub-
stance of the thing” and the “primary cause of its being” (Met VII.17, 1041b6–​
9, 27; CW II.1644). The substantial form can serve as the primary cause of
the being of a material object insofar as it is identical to a conceptually funda-
mental “essence” (to ti ein einai: literally, “the what it is to be”).37 The contrast
here is with the essence of snubness, which must be defined in terms of the
essence of its subject, the nose (Met VII.11, 1037a21–​1037b8; CW II.1637–​
38). And in general, the essences of accidents presuppose the essences of
their subjects, and so the former cannot count as fundamental. In the case of
the substantial form, however, the essence of no other thing is presupposed,
and thus this form counts as fully separate in formulation, and so as “the sub-
stance of ” a composite material object.38

37 I bracket here a dispute in the literature over the precise sort of ontological priority that is re-

quired for form to be separate (chôriston). For two different accounts, compare Peramatzis 2011 and
Katz 2017.
38 Again, I am bracketing a scholarly debate over whether substantial forms are specific to par-

ticular material objects or whether they serve as the essence of all members of a given kind. On the
one hand, Aristotle’s argument in Metaphysics VII.13 against the conclusion that universals can be
substances seems to count in favor of the view that his forms are particular. On the other hand, he
claims elsewhere in Metaphysics Zeta that substances are definable (VII.4), that definition is of the
universal (VII.11), and that it is impossible to define particulars (VII.15). For an influential defense
of the particular form interpretation, see Frede and Patzig 1988: I.48–​57 and II.241–​63, and for a de-
tailed response to this interpretation, see Loux 1991: 187–​96 and ch. 6.
22 The Metaphysics of the Material World

The particular characterization in Metaphysics Zeta of substantial form as

“primary substance” (e.g., at VII.7, 1032b1–​2; CW II.1630) raises the ques-
tion of whether we have here a replacement for the claim in the Categories
that particular material objects are the primary substances. According to one
prominent position, the Metaphysics is a later work that corrects the earlier
account of primary substance in the Categories in light of the intervening
account in the Physics of the hylomorphic structure of material substance.39
There is the counter-​argument in the literature that the underlying assump-
tion of the incompatibility of the views of the Categories and Metaphysics is
itself untenable. The suggestion is that the Categories merely abstracts from
the details of hylomorphism, perhaps because it is an introductory text, and
that the Metaphysics retains the sense that concrete material objects count as
substances.40
Once again, I will not attempt to settle this scholarly dispute here.
However, I do sense in the Metaphysics a kind of demotion of a criterion of
substantiality that is central to the Categories, namely, that of being an ulti-
mate subject of predication/​inherence. To be sure, this criterion continues
to be present in the Metaphysics, along with the claim that the material com-
posite is a substance insofar as it is the subject of accidents. Nonetheless, it
seems that substantial form—​that is, for the Metaphysics, substance in the
primary sense—​is not a subject of accidents, at least not in the same sense
that the material composite is.41 It may well be that the sense in which form is
substance is perfectly compatible with the sense in which the concrete object
is substance, and thus that there is no pressure on textual grounds to deny
that the Categories and Metaphysics are contemporaneous. Nonetheless,
the Metaphysics does introduce a notion of substance as fundamental es-
sence that is at least not straightforwardly derivable from the notion in
the Categories of substance as ultimate subject of accidents. And though
the latter notion is prominent in Bayle’s Spinoza article, the former is vir-
tually (though, as we will discover, not completely)42 absent from that text.
This is unfortunate since the notion of substance as fundamental essence is

39 See, for instance, Graham 1988, which takes the introduction in the Physics of a hylomorphic

analysis of material substance to be a crucial turning point in the evolution of Aristotle’s thought.
40 For different versions of this line of argument, see Gill 1989 and Wedin 2000.
41 Admittedly, there is a reading of the Metaphysics on which it affirms that substantial forms—​and

indeed, only substantial forms—​are subjects of accidents properly speaking; see Frede and Patzig
1988: I.37–​38, 52–​53, and II.37–​40. But here I am inclined to the view in Loux 1991 that in this text it
is almost exclusively material composites and their matter that serve as subjects of accidents, and that
when substantial forms are said to be subjects it is only in an attenuated sense (231–​35).
42 See §6.1.1, around note 19.
 Bayle’s Narrative 23

particularly important for Spinoza.43 However, we still have miles to go be-

fore we are in a position to discuss Spinoza’s views on this issue in any detail.
In following the route to Spinoza that Bayle has set out for us, we will need
to proceed by way of a distinctive version of Aristotelian metaphysics that
emerges in post-​medieval scholasticism.

43 Especially with respect to the relation of substance to its attributes; see §6.1.2.
 PART I
SUÁ R E Z
 2
Metaphysics and Material Modes

In highlighting the development of the notion of mode in late scholasticism,

Bayle’s critique of Spinoza leads us to Francesco Suárez. The work of Suárez
in fact provides an important bridge between medieval and modern philos-
ophy. He himself was steeped in the medieval scholastic tradition and offered
a grand metaphysical synthesis that combines various strands from that tradi-
tion. However, this synthesis had an influence even on later modern thinkers
who set themselves in opposition to scholastic metaphysics. Exhibit A in the
defense of this claim is Suárez’s conception of a mode in terms of nonmutual
separability, exactly the conception that Bayle emphasizes in his critique of
Spinoza. Even if one follows Robert Pasnau in dismissing as overblown the
textbook claim that “Francisco Suárez was the main channel through which
medieval philosophy flowed into the modern world,”1 it seems that it must
also be granted, with Pasnau, that Suárez “does seem to have been extremely
important on the subject of modes,” and that with respect to this subject he
“seems to be doing something new.”2 In this chapter, one main goal is to show
that the new notion of mode that Suárez introduced has a foundational role
to play in his account of the metaphysics of the material world.
Before getting to this point, however, I begin in §2.1 with a consideration
of Suárez’s general conception of metaphysics. The emphasis here is on his
defense of an “analogical” metaphysics that constitutes a distinctive contri-
bution to the medieval scholastic debate over the applicability of the notion
of being to God and creatures. In ­chapter 4, we will encounter what is argu-
ably a version of this kind of metaphysics in Descartes.
What will be more important for the connection to Descartes, however, is
Suárez’s theory of distinctions. The basic features of this theory are the focus
of §2.2. With other scholastics, Suárez assumes that there is an important

1 Pasnau 2011: 253. Though Pasnau does not provide the source of the textbook claim, it is in fact

from Doyle 1998.

2 Pasnau 2011: 255. Menn 1997 is the seminal discussion of Suárez’s introduction of the metaphys-

ical notion of mode (though, as Pasnau notes, certain details of Menn’s summary of Suárez’s position
require correction; see Pasnau 2011: 258n15). For another discussion of Suárez on modes that draws
heavily on Menn’s article, see Hartbecke 2008: 21–​27.

The Metaphysics of the Material World. Tad M. Schmaltz, Oxford University Press (2020).
© Oxford University Press.
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190070229.001.0001
28 The Metaphysics of the Material World

difference between a “real” distinction of a thing (res) from another thing not
identical to it, on the one hand, and a distinction “in reason” between two
aspects of a single thing that are distinguished only by means of our concepts.
With respect to his treatment of these distinctions, one issue to track is the
extent to which Suárez holds that a real distinction requires the mutual sep-
arability of the distinct res. However, the main emphasis in this chapter is on
the fact that Suárez introduces a novel sort of intermediate distinction be-
tween a mode and the res it modifies. In this case the issue to track is whether
nonmutual separability is sufficient for this sort of distinction.
Finally, in §2.3 I turn to a consideration of Suárez’s application of the
modal distinction to material substances and their accidents. I focus on two
modes that are foundational for Suárez’s conception of the material world,
namely, the substantial mode of union, which accounts for the unity of a ma-
terial substance composed of substantial form and prime matter, and the ac-
cidental mode of inherence, which accounts for the connection between a
material substance and (a particular subset of) its accidental features.

2.1. Analogical Metaphysics

In his Disputationes, Suárez invokes the authority of Aristotle in holding the

object of metaphysics to be “being insofar as it is real being” (ens quantum ens
reale) (DM I.1.26, I.11a).3 One issue that was pressing for Suárez—​though
certainly was not for Aristotle—​is whether there is a single sense in which
both God, as infinite and uncreated, and creatures, as finite and created,
count as beings. Perhaps the dominant position during the medieval period
was that of Thomas Aquinas (1225–​1274), according to which being is said
of God and creatures “analogically,” in the same way that the term is applied
primarily to substances and secondarily to the accidents that depend essen-
tially on them. This position is a kind of “middle way” between two opposing
views. The first is that being is said of God and creatures in the very same
sense, that is, univocally, in the way, for instance, that animal is said of both
lions and tigers. The second is the view that being is said of God and creatures

3 Suárez cites Aristotle’s views in Metaphysics Theta; see, for instance, Meta IV.1, 1003a22–​23; CW

II.1548. The restriction of metaphysics to ens reale reflects Suárez’s view that it does not include entia
rationis, such as negations and privations as well as fictitious objects, which have no real existence.
See DM LIV, II.1014b–​41b, which is devoted to the issue of the status of entia rationis, as well as the
discussion of this Disputatio in Shields 2012.
 Metaphysics and Material Modes 29

in entirely different senses, that is, equivocally, in the way that dog is said of
the animal and the star. Aquinas insists that being cannot be said univocally
of God and creatures, given that there is a kind of metaphysical simplicity in
God that has no counterpart in the created world. Yet he also claims that the
fact that God “eminently” contains the perfections of creatures rules out the
claim that being has only an equivocal application. The only remaining possi-
bility, then, is an analogical relation between God and creatures.4
This middle position came under attack in the work of John Duns Scotus
(1266–​1308), who argued that just as being must be said univocally of sub-
stance and its accidents (since all of these have their own intrinsic existence),
so there must be a single “objective concept” of being that applies univocally
to God and creatures.5 One of Scotus’s arguments for univocity appeals to
the fact that the objective concepts we apply to God come from those that we
apply to ourselves. If the very same concepts that apply to us cannot apply to
God, then there is no way for us to even talk about God. Thus, the possibility
of a metaphysics that includes God requires that there be objective concepts
that apply univocally to God and creatures, including the objective concept
of being, which is of course central to Aristotelian metaphysics conceived as
the science of being qua being.6
Suárez’s official position is that being relates to God and creatures by a
particular kind of analogy, according to which the existence of creatures is
“founded in a proper and intrinsic being that has an essential relation or de-
pendence on God” (DM XXVIII.3.16, II.18a). However, Suárez also seems to
defend the Scotistic position that there is a single objective concept of being
that applies equally to God and creatures. Thus, he claims that there is “one
adequate and immediate objective concept, that expresses neither substance,
nor accidents, nor God, nor creatures, but all of these through one mode,
namely insofar as there are some similar modes that belongs to them essen-
tially [conveniunt in essendo]” (DM II.2.8, I.72a). There is in fact a reading of
Suárez in the French literature that takes his profession of analogy to mask an

4 See ST Ia.13.5. The distinction between univocity and equivocity is related to Aristotle’s distinc-

tion at the beginning of the Categories between homonyms, which have only a name in common,
and synonyms, which have both the name and definition in common; see Cat 1, 1a1–​12; CW I.3. The
notion of analogy is anticipated in Metaphysics Zeta, where Aristotle claims that the term “medical”
is said of a patient, an operation, and an instrument neither homonymously nor synonymously, but
“with reference to one thing”; see Met VII.4, 1030a33–​1030b3, CW II.1627.
5 Scotus distinguishes between the “formal concept,” or the act by which the mind conceives of an

object, and the “objective concept,” or the concept of the object toward which the formal concept is
directed.
6 See Duns Scotus 1987: 4–​8 and 19–​22.
30 The Metaphysics of the Material World

underlying commitment to Scotistic univocity. For example, Jean-​François

Courtine takes Suárez to

clearly highlight the Scotistic background of his enterprise: the unity

and simplicity of the concept of being, which must first be able to be
predicated indifferently of all that is. The Thomistic determination of
analogy thus risks placing in peril the entire enterprise of metaphysics,
if it is true that this is defined first and above all in what seeks to con-
sider God and creatures ut entia sunt, and not ut talia entia (created-​
uncreated; finite-​infinite). (Courtine 1990: 532)

In a similar vein, Jean-​Luc Marion holds that Suárez “has on the one hand
tangentially annihilated analogy by the objective concept of ens so as to make
it almost useless, and on the other hand tangentially leads all analogy to
univocity so as to render the former suspect of inefficacy” (Marion 1991: 139).
Marion’s admission that Suárez’s system only “tangentially” has these results
indicates more clearly than the passage from Courtine that Suárez did not
see himself as a proponent of the univocity of being. Nonetheless, Marion
agrees with Courtine on the essential point that in positing a single objective
concept of being that applies indifferently to God and creatures, Suárez has in
effect undermined Thomistic analogy.7
Admittedly, Suárez’s complex discussion of the objective concept of being
can seem to support the reading of Courtine and Marion. However, there is
an alternative reading that allows for Suárez’s own explicit affirmation of a
version of Thomistic analogy. Suárez is in a line of post-​Thomistic thinkers
who attempt to refine Aquinas’s own somewhat underdeveloped notion of
analogy.8 Suárez begins by arguing against the view—​suggested particularly
in the work of the Thomist Thommaso de Vio, aka Cajetan (1469–​1534)—​
that the relevant notion of analogy is a kind of “analogy of proportionality”
(analogia proportionalitatis).9 Suárez rejects the appropriateness of this sort
of analogy on the grounds that it is merely “metaphorical”; we have such an

7 The account of Suárez in Courtine and Marion reflects a Heideggerian narrative that identifies

metaphysics in the Western world with an “onto-​theo-​logy” that reduces all of being to an intelligible
concept. Heidegger himself emphasizes the importance of Scotus for onto-​theo-​logy (his habilitation
was on Scotus), and Courtine and Marion have contributed the view that the Scotistic position is fur-
ther supported and developed in the work of Suárez.
8 On the complexities of the scholastic development of the notion of analogy after Aquinas, see

Ashworth 1995.
9 On Cajetan’s view on analogy, see Ashworth 1995: 64–​65. See also note 13.
 Metaphysics and Material Modes 31

analogy, for instance, when we say that a meadow has a smile like a face.10
More schematically, the view is the following:11

T is P by an analogy of proportionality just in case: S is P by form F in S,

and T is P by form G in T, in such a way that T is P only in virtue of the
fact that it is related to G as S is related to F.

Thus, in the previous example a meadow can be said to have a smile in the
sense that it has some feature that brightens it in a way analogous to the
manner in which a smile brightens a face.
However, Suárez holds that there is another kind of analogy that is more
apt for the comparison of God and creatures, namely, the “analogy of attribu-
tion” (analogia attributionis). Even here, he finds it important to distinguish
between two different kinds of such an analogy, namely one that is “extrinsic”
(extrinsece) and one that is “intrinsic” (intrinsece).12 The example Suárez
offers of an analogy of extrinsic attribution involves the attribution of health
to medicine. Here the medicine is not intrinsically healthy, but it is called
healthy due to its relation to the health that an animal has intrinsically. The
relevant schema here is the following:

T is P by analogy of extrinsic attribution just in case: S is P by form F in

S, and T is P by form F in S.13

In contrast, something has a feature by analogy of intrinsic attribution if it

has that feature intrinsically, but only in virtue of some essential dependence
on something else that has that feature intrinsically. Thus, an accident intrin-
sically exists, but only in virtue of an essential sort of dependence on the in-
trinsic existence of substance. Again schematically, the view is:

T is P by analogy of intrinsic attribution just in case: S is P by form F in S,

and T is P by form G in T, but in such a way that G requires an essential
dependence on F.

10 See DM XXVIII.3.11, II.16b; the example of the meadow is from DM VIII.7.21, I.302b.
11 The schemata I use in discussing Suárez’s view of analogy are drawn from those in Menn
2003: 165–​66, which in turn are close to what we find in Suárez’s own text.
12 Suárez discusses this distinction in DM XXVIII.3.14, II.17ab.
13 Cajetan held that this is the only kind of analogy of attribution. This explains his preference for

analogy of proportionality, which at least involves an attribution based on an intrinsic feature of the
object.
32 The Metaphysics of the Material World

It is this sort of analogy, Suárez insists, that applies to the case of the relation
between God and creatures. In terms of our schema, we get the result that
creatures exist by analogy of intrinsic attribution insofar as both they and
God exist intrinsically, though the existence of creatures requires an essential
dependence on God, whereas the existence of God requires no essential de-
pendence on anything else.
Despite this difference, it is crucial that God and creatures are similar
insofar as both possess an intrinsic sort of existence; this is what allows
for an analogy of intrinsic attribution. I propose that this commonality ac-
counts for Suárez’s concession to Scotus that there is an objective concept
of being that applies indifferently to God and creatures. Nonetheless, pace
Courtine and Marion, this result does not require Scotistic univocity insofar
as there remains a fundamental difference between the intrinsic existence
of God and creatures, namely, that the intrinsic existence of God involves
complete independence from anything external, whereas the intrinsic exist-
ence of creatures involves an essential dependence on God as their creator.
In contrast to Scotus’s position that this sort of dependence is an external
feature added to being in general, Suárez maintains that dependence is con-
stitutive of creaturely existence, just as independence is constitutive of divine
existence.14
Suárez expresses this fundamental difference between God and creatures
in saying that divine existence is essentially a se—​from himself—​whereas
creaturely existence is essentially ab alio—​from another.15 We are to under-
stand this difference in terms of efficient causation. Since Suárez assumes as
an axiom that all efficient causes are external to their effects, he concludes
from the fact that God is from himself that he does not require an efficient
cause for his existence.16 Creatures are from another, however, in the sense
that they do depend essentially on a particular external efficient cause for
their existence, namely, on God as “primary efficient cause.”17

14 In order to illustrate Suárez’s position, Menn offers the example of the health of the heart, which

is something intrinsic to the heart but which also involves an essential dependence on the health of
the animal (2003: 166).
15 See DM XXVIII.1.6, II.2b–​3a.
16 For the causal axiom that an efficient cause must be distinct in re from the recipient of the action,

see DM XVIII.6–​8, I.632b–​33a. For the claim that God’s being is esse incausatum et improductum, see
DM XXVII.1.10, II.3ab. As we will discover, Spinoza and, to a lesser extent, Descartes deviate from
Suárez in attempting to provide room for the notion of God as causa sui; see §6.1.1.
17 As Suárez notes, a “primary efficient cause” is one that “operates altogether independently,”

whereas a “secondary efficient cause” is one that “is dependent, even if it operates by means of a
power that is principal and proportionate” (DM XVII.2.20, I.591b).
 Metaphysics and Material Modes 33

Suárez defines created substance as that which exists in se ac per se, that
is, in and through itself (DM XXVIII.1.6, II.2b). In contrast to the view that
God completely transcends the Aristotelian categories, Suárez contends
that God can be considered as substance insofar as he, in common with cre-
ated substances, has an intrinsic existence that precludes the possibility of
existing in another. But though God’s existence in/​per se is to be explained
in terms of his existence a se, the in/​per se existence of created substances is
to be explained in terms of the fact that God creates and conserves them as
such.18
The in/​per se existence of created substances is to be further contrasted with
the in alio/​per aliud existence of “real accidents.” According to Suárez, such
accidents are “real” insofar as they have their own intrinsic existence.19 Here
he agrees with Scotus in rejecting a more “deflationary” account that reduces
the existence of accidents in general to the existence of the substances that
serve as their subjects.20 Nonetheless, Suárez holds that the existence of real
accidents is per aliud not only in the sense that it, like the existence of created
substances, depends essentially on divine creation and conservation, but also
in the sense that it includes an essential “aptitude” to exist in a created sub-
stance.21 This further difference from the existence of created substance serves
to explain Suárez’s conclusion that being can be said of real accidents and cre-
ated substance only by analogy of intrinsic attribution, and not univocally.22
In terms of Aristotle’s Categories, it would seem that Suárez’s created
substances are paradigmatic primary substances insofar as they serve as
subjects of real accidents that cannot themselves have a subject insofar as
they are in/​per se.23 However, from Suárez’s perspective such substances
count as substantial only in a derivative sense since they exist ab alio rather
than a se. For him, in fact, substance applies primarily to God, the only being

18 This marks an essential difference between the views of Suárez and Spinoza; in contrast,

Descartes accepts the Suárezian line on this issue; see, again, §6.1.1.
19 In contrast, as we will see in §2.3.3, to the existence of members of other accidental categories

that are either modes or extrinsic denominations.

20 For examples of such a deflationary account in medieval scholasticism, see the discussion in

Pasnau 2011: 181–​85.

21 As indicated in §2.3.3, this aptitude allows for the possibility that real accidents miraculously

exist without inhering in any created substance.

22 See DM XXXI.2.11, II.322b. In light of the reading that we have considered in Courtine and

Marion, it is significant that Suárez allows that there is a single objective concept that applies to
created substances and their accidents but also insists against Scotus that this fact does not require
univocity, insofar as it does not require a kind of existence that is itself indifferent to priority and pos-
teriority in terms of dependence; see DM XXXI.2.15, II.323b.
23 See the discussion of Aristotle’s view in §1.2.1.
34 The Metaphysics of the Material World

in which existence in/​per se derives from existence a se. But Suárez further
concludes that a being that exists a se, and so by means of its essence alone,
cannot have any accidental features that are distinct from that essence.24 For
if God did have such features, there would be something in himself that is ab
alio, and so he himself could not be said to exist entirely a se.25 A being that
exists entirely a se therefore cannot have any accidents that exist in it as in a
subject. However, Suárez holds that created substances are not simply that
“which is per se,” but in addition “that in which accidents subsist or can sub-
sist, which is seen by how Aristotle took and described the substance of the
categories” (DM XXXII.1.6, II.314a). What Aristotle held in the Categories
to be a defining feature of primary substance becomes in Suárez an inessen-
tial feature that applies only to something that is a substance in a derivative
sense, and not to the one unique being that he takes to be a substance in a
primary sense, namely, God.26
Nonetheless, in the broadest sense, God, created substances, and real
accidents count as distinct “things,” or res, insofar as they all have their own
intrinsic being. For Suárez, these res are to be distinguished from other
features of reality of which we may seem to speak in the same way we speak
of res, but which do not themselves count as res in the most proper sense. In
order to understand this position in Suárez, we must consider his theory of
distinctions, which—​I continue to insist, on Bayleian grounds—​is a partic-
ularly influential aspect of his metaphysical system. This theory is the focus
of the next section, and it is to be coupled with the discussion in §4.1 of the
theory of distinctions in Descartes. In the final section of this chapter, how-
ever, I consider first the complex manner in which Suárez applies his theory
to the particular case of material substance.

24 Since for Suárez any sort of composition involves potentiality, God, as “pure act,” must be a com-

pletely simple being identical to its essence; see DM XXVIII.1.15, II.5b–​6a.

25 Even if these features were necessary accidents, or propria, that “emanate” immediately from the

divine essence, the features themselves would still be ab alio insofar as they are distinct from this es-
sence. The issue of propria will re-​appear in §4.2.1, after note 50.
26 We saw in §1.2.2 that there is some anticipation of this deviation in Aristotle’s emphasis in

Metaphysics Zeta that form is a primary substance in the sense of being a fundamental essence.
However, Suárez’s deviation depends on a particular conception of God as the ultimate source of the
being of everything else, a conception that has no clear precedent even in the Aristotelian notion of
an “unmoved mover.”
 Metaphysics and Material Modes 35

2.2. Theory of Distinctions I

2.2.1. Rational and Real Distinctions

By the time of Suárez, it was a dominant view within scholasticism that there
are at least two basic metaphysical distinctions, the first a “real distinction”
(distinctio realis) between two different res, and the second a mere “distinc-
tion of reason” (distinctio rationis) between different ways of conceiving one
and the same res that are not themselves distinct in reality.27 It was com-
monly assumed among scholastics that res include not only substances,
which have their own being as ultimate subjects of accidents, but also “real
accidents,” which have a reality that is not entirely dependent on the reality
of the substances in which they naturally inhere (though there were scho-
lastic disputes over which accidents count as real).28 In the discussion of the
theory of distinctions in his Disputationes, Suárez sees no reason to argue
extensively for the claim that there are these two kinds of distinctions.29 He
can simply appeal to the widespread agreement that a real distinction holds
between two things just in case “one thing is not the other, and conversely,”
and that a rational distinction holds between two things insofar as those “are
denominated as distinct not insofar as they exist in themselves, but only in-
sofar as they are the subject of our concepts and from which they receive
their denomination.” As obvious examples of the former, Suárez offers things
“that are not only distinct, but also not even united to one another, as is the
case with two supposita, or with accidents that inhere is distinct supposita.”
As examples of the latter, he offers “the manner in which we distinguish in
God one attribute from another, or better the relation of identity to its term,

27 Suárez allows that there is a distinction analogous to a real distinction that holds between dif-

ferent privative “beings of reason” (entia rationis), such as between blindness and darkness (DM
VII.1.2, I.250b). Moreover, he explicitly extends the distinction of reason to different conceptions of
the same ens rationis (DM VII.1.6, I.251b–​252a), and he takes such a distinction to hold between dif-
ferent conceptions of the same “mode” (modus), which like an ens rationis is not a res though unlike
it is a positive feature of reality. With respect to the latter, we have such a distinction with respect to
the relation between an action, which is a mode, and its corresponding passion, which is only ration-
ally distinct from that mode (DM XLIX.1.3, II.898b). For more on Suárez’s conception of modes, see
§2.2.2.
28 Most important for our purposes, there was a dispute among scholastics over whether quantity

is a real accident or rather something that cannot be distinguished in reality from substance and its
integral parts; see §3.1.
29 See DM VII.1.1–​8, I.250a–​52b.
36 The Metaphysics of the Material World

when we say that Peter is identical to himself ” (DM VII.1.1 and 4, I.250ab
and 251a).30
These last two examples indicate a difference between two kinds of rational
distinction. In the case of Peter’s identity to himself, we have what Suárez calls
a distinction of “reasoning reason” (rationis ratiocinatis), where only a single
concept is involved. In contrast, the distinction between divine attributes is a
distinction of “reasoned reason” (rationis ratiocinatæ), which employs different
“inadequate”—​that is to say, incomplete—​concepts of one and the same thing.
In contrast to a distinction rationis ratiocinatis, this sort of distinction is said to
have a “foundation in fact” insofar as there is some basis outside of our intellect
for the distinction among our concepts.31
With respect to the views of Descartes and Spinoza, however, the more rel-
evant distinction in Suárez is the real distinction. Particularly relevant here is
Suárez’s view that the mutual separability of two items is a “sign” of a real dis-
tinction between them.32 He notes two possible kinds of separability: “with re-
spect to a real union,” where each of two things can be conserved without being
united to the other, and “with respect to existence,” where each of two things can
be conserved in existence without the other being so conserved (DM VII.2.9,
I.264b). In both cases, the relevant separability need not be the possibility of
separation in the actual course of nature, since it suffices that God can miracu-
lously bring about such a separation by means of his “absolute power.” As Suárez
expresses the point, in a way that anticipates Descartes, for a real distinction “it
makes no difference whether the separation takes place naturally or supernatu-
rally” (DM VII.2.10, I.265a).33
In the discussion of the real distinction in the Disputationes, it is separa-
bility with respect to existence that is most prominent.34 It is clear that Suárez

30 In fact, the example of the distinction among divine attributes is somewhat controversial insofar

as Scotus and other Scotists held that a “formal distinction” applies in this case, and not a distinction
of reason. For more on the formal distinction, and Suárez’s opposition to it, see §2.2.2.
31 See DM VII.1.5–​8, I.251a–​52b.
32 There is a concern in the literature to infer from the fact that Suárez takes mutual separability to

be merely a sign of a real distinction that he does not take this sort of separability to constitute a real
distinction; see, for instance, Rozemond 1998: 5–​6, and Pasnau 2011: 263. Here I take it as a given
that mutual separability does not constitute Suárez’s real distinction insofar as mutual separability is
itself grounded in the fact that the really distinct items are non-​identical res. The point that interests
me is that Suárez’s view that mutual separability is merely a sign of a real distinction indicates a rejec-
tion of the claim that this is both sufficient and necessary for such a distinction.
33 For this same principle in Descartes, see §4.1.2, before note 28.
34 For instance, when Suárez discusses his official exceptions to the rule of the necessity of mutual

separability (which I consider presently), he has in mind the claim (also cited later) that “if things are
really distinct, they can be really disjoined, and if they are really disjoined, no repugnance or con-
tradiction is involved in the notion of one of them being conserved by God without the other” (DM
 Metaphysics and Material Modes 37

takes this kind of mutual separability to be sufficient for a real distinction: if

two res each can exist without the other existing, certainly they cannot be
identical! But one reason that Suárez emphasizes that such separability can
be merely a sign is that he is committed to denying that mutual separability
with respect to existence is necessary for such a distinction.35 He offers three
official exceptions to the rule of the necessity of mutual separability, all of
which involve “essential ordination and dependence” (DM VII.2.24, I.259b).
The first exception is the real distinction of God from creatures. We have seen
that being can be said of God and creatures only by analogy (of intrinsic at-
tribution) since whereas God depends on nothing for his existence, creatures
depend essentially on God for theirs.36 Thus, the fact that God and creatures
are really distinct cannot require mutual separability. However, this result
cannot show that mutual separability is not required for a real distinction
among created res insofar as “no creature has so essential an effective de-
pendence on another creature, especially if it has the true entity and reality of
which we are now speaking” (DM VII.2.25, I.259b).
We will consider later the implication in Spinoza that the fact that creatures
have an essential dependence on God serves to show that they in some sense
exist in God, as modes of the divine substance.37 But here Suárez would want
to insist on the difference between existing ab alio and existing in alio or per
aliud. As we have seen, Suárez holds that a being that exists a se can have no
accidents, since it is simply identical to the essence of a necessarily existent
being. To be the subject of inhering accidents requires a complexity that is in-
compatible with such an existence. We will discover that Spinoza has his own
reasons for concluding that only a being that exists a se can exist in/​per se.38
But from Suárez’s perspective, the very fact that something exists in/​per se as
a subject of accidents reveals that that thing cannot itself exist a se.
The other two exceptions that Suárez offers to the rule of the necessity of
mutual separability for a real distinction introduce different complications.
I consider these in reverse order. Suárez’s last exception is the real distinction
among the three Persons of the Trinity, namely, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
These persons are inseparable in virtue of the fact that they share the same

VII.2.24, I.270a). I take this sort of separability to be most relevant to the conception of the real dis-
tinction in Descartes and Spinoza; see §4.1.2, after note 31, and ­chapter 5, note 53.
35 Unless otherwise noted, in what follows “mutual separability” refers to mutual separability with

respect to existence rather than with respect to real union.

36 See §2.1, after note 13.
37 See §6.2.
38 See §6.1.1.
38 The Metaphysics of the Material World

essence of a necessarily existent being. Nonetheless, Suárez takes faith to re-

quire the belief that the persons are really distinct from each other.39 In this
case persons that are united to the same essence are nonetheless really dis-
tinct “on account of the real production of one from another” (DM VII.2.19,
I.268b). According to Suárez, the mere fact that the three persons are defined
in terms of the different causal relations of paternity (the Father as gener-
ator), filiation (the Son as generated Word), and spiration (the Holy Spirit as
generated love of the Word) suffices to show that they are distinct res. Here
again, though, Suárez is careful to note that this sort of real distinction “is
proper to a thing that is simply infinite” insofar as “a finite thing, while it re-
mains numerically the same, cannot be united by identity with things really
distinct from it” (DM VII.2.5, I.263a).40 As with the first exception, this ex-
ception cannot provide a basis for denying that mutual separability is a nec-
essary condition for a real distinction among created res.
The final (Suárez’s second) official exception may seem at first to provide
such a basis. This is the case of the real distinction between a relation and its
term. What Suárez has in mind here are “real relations,” as opposed to rela-
tions that have no intrinsic basis—​no foundation, in Suárez’s terms—​in the
subject of the relation. For instance, the relation of being seen is merely an “ex-
trinsic denomination” because this relation can change without any change
in the object that is seen. For this reason, the relation is not founded in the
nature of the object. This sort of relation therefore differs in kind from the re-
lation of the similarity of the whiteness of Socrates to the whiteness of Plato,
which does have a foundation in an intrinsic feature of Socrates, namely, his
whiteness. This aspect of the relation suffices to show that it is an accident
in Socrates, considered in the category of relation.41 What makes the case
of categorical relation an exception to the condition of mutual separability
is the fact that though a relation and its terminus are inseparable, insofar as

39 In holding that the divine Persons are identical to the divine essence but really distinct from each

other, Suárez distinguishes his position from that of Scotus, who takes the distinction between the
divine essence and the Persons to be formal. Suárez rejects Scotus’s view in DM VII.2.5, I.263a.
40 As we will see in §2.2.2, this claim concerning finite things is the basis for Suárez’s conclusion

that two modes of the same substance are not really distinct even though they are in some sense mu-
tually separable.
41 Such categorical relations are to be distinguished from what Suárez calls “transcendental rela-

tions.” One way in which he distinguishes these two kinds of relations is in terms of the fact that cate-
gorical relations merely relate the foundation to the terminus, and do nothing to produce the relation.
In contrast, the relations involved in the union of substantial form and prime matter (considered in
§2.3.2) and the inherence of a real accident in a substance (considered in §2.3.3) are transcendental
in the sense that they involve the production of a relation. See DM XLVII.4.10–​11, II.801b–​802b; see
also notes 89 and 103. For different notions of a transcendental relation, see notes 62 and 80.
 Metaphysics and Material Modes 39

both must actually exist in order for the relation to hold, nonetheless it can be
the case that they are really distinct from each other.42 To take our previous
example, the similarity of the whiteness of Socrates to the whiteness of Plato,
which serves as its terminus, could not exist without the latter. Nonetheless,
Suárez insists that this similarity is a res that is really distinct from the res that
is Plato’s whiteness.
Yet this particular case turns out to be an exception that supports the rule
of the necessity of mutual separability. For similarity is a res only in the very
special sense that it is merely rationally distinct (with a distinction of rea-
soned reason) from the res that serves as its foundation.43 And this res is
indeed separable from the terminus just as the terminus is separable from
it: the whiteness of Socrates and the whiteness of Plato can each exist without
the other. In the end, therefore, the real distinction of a categorical relation
from its terminus does not provide a counter-​example to the principle that in
the case of all created things, a real distinction requires mutual separability.
After considering the three official exceptions, Suárez concludes that
when it is properly qualified, one can accept as a guiding principle that “if
things are really distinct, they can be really disjoined, and if they are really
disjoined, no repugnance or contradiction is involved in the notion of one
of them being conserved by God without the other” (DM VII.2.24, I.270a).
However, there is an additional exception to the rule of the necessity of mu-
tual separability that will turn out to be crucial for our purposes insofar as it
relates to issues concerning the real distinction in Descartes and Spinoza.44
Suárez’s discussion of the official exceptions is in fact prefaced by the caveat
that his consideration of the status of mutual separability is restricted to

things that are wholly distinct from each other, so that they are not re-
lated as whole or part, or container and contained; for of such things it
is evident that what includes another cannot be conserved without that

42 “Can be the case”: Suárez allows for relations that are only modally distinct from their termini.

As we will soon discover, his view is that though a modal distinction is one that holds “in reality,”
it nonetheless falls short of a real distinction in the strict sense, that is, a distinction of res from res.
Nonetheless, Suárez insists that the distinction between a categorial relation and its terminus must be
one that holds in reality, whether really or modally; see DM XLVII.9.4, II.819b.
43 See DM XLVII.2.22, II.792b. The discussion in §2.2.2 may seem to open up the possibility that

the relation is modally distinct from its foundation. However, Suárez rules this out on the grounds
that the foundation is inseparable from the relation once the terminus has been posited, and so
cannot be modally distinct from that relation; see DM XLVII.2.15, II.790a. For a discussion of some
problematic aspects of this argument, see Penner 2013: 11–​13.
44 See in particular the discussion of the “vacuum argument” in §5.2.2.
40 The Metaphysics of the Material World

other, since it is intrinsically made up of lesser elements. (DM VII.2.22,

I.269b)

One might worry here that the admission of this counter-​example will un-
dermine confidence in the rule of the necessity of mutual separability even
when this is restricted to creatures. For if this rule did not hold for parts and
wholes, why not suspect that there are many other exceptions that we have
not yet considered?45 But I think a clue to the reason that Suárez is not wor-
ried is provided by his claim in the preceding passage that it is simply “evi-
dent” that a whole is really distinct from its proper parts.46 As he expresses
the point earlier in the Disputationes, it is “self-​evident” that “the whole and
the parts are not entirely the same,” and thus that the distinction between
them is real since “the whole includes something that a part does not” (DM
VII.1.24, I.259ab). Thus, in his more careful moments, Suárez understands
the requirement of mutual separability for a real distinction to apply in the
case of creatures only to “extremes,” neither of which is contained in the other
(as in DM VII.2.22, I.269b).47
Later we will consider how precisely various mereological relations of
parts to the whole they constitute or compose introduce complications for
the conclusion that really distinct material things must be mutually sepa-
rable.48 But before turning to these issues concerning Suárez’s mereology,
I need to explore a feature of his theory of distinctions that is particularly
germane to Bayle’s critique of Spinoza, namely, the modal distinction and the
account of modes that it requires.49

45 Thanks to Bob Pasnau for pressing me on this point.

46 In contemporary terms, a proper part is something that is not identical to the whole it composes.
The contrast here is with improper parts. When speaking of parts in this context, Suárez clearly has in
mind what we would classify as proper parts.
47 To anticipate the discussion that follows, why Suárez couldn’t take a whole that is inseparable

from its parts to be a mode of those parts rather than something really distinct from them? An initial
answer is that since Suárez holds that a mode cannot itself be the subject of another mode (see §2.2.2,
after note 58), and since wholes can be subjects of modes, wholes must be res and not modes. As we
will discover in ­chapter 7, Spinoza is committed to the view that both parts and the wholes they com-
pose are modes, but also to the view that wholes are neither modes of their parts, nor the parts modes
of the wholes they compose.
48 In particular, I consider in §2.3.1 the complications regarding the real distinction of a material

substance from its “essential parts,” that is, the substantial form and prime matter that constitute it;
and in §3.2.2 the complications regarding the real distinction of a quantitative whole from its “inte-
gral parts,” that is, the distinguishable parts that compose it.
49 For a list of Suárez’s exceptions to the rule that mutual separability is necessary for a real distinc-

tion, see Table 2.1.

 Metaphysics and Material Modes 41

2.2.2. A New Modal Distinction

In 1543, the Thomist Domingo de Soto (1494–​1560) wrote that “among all
the philosophers before Scotus, there were only two distinctions: a distinc-
tion of reason and a real distinction” (Domingo de Soto 1967: 43). Some fifty
years later, Suárez indicates that such a view remained popular within scho-
lasticism, the influence of Scotus notwithstanding. Indeed, the position can
seem obvious. As Suárez notes in the Disputationes, it would appear to be the
case that “all objects that we conceive as two entities are either really the same
or really other.” But if they are really other, “they are really distinct,” and if
they are really the same, they must be distinguished only in reason since “it
is impossible for a thing to be simultaneously the same and other in the real
order” (DM VII.1.10, I.253a). But this exhausts the possible options. Thus,
there is no distinction intermediate between the real and the rational.
As the quote from Soto indicates, Suárez was not the first to challenge this
line of argument. In particular, Scotus posited an intermediate “formal dis-
tinction” that holds between a res and aspects of it that have mutually inde-
pendent definitions (rationes) or “formalities.”50 Since Scotus held that even
nonmutual separability requires a real distinction, he took formally distinct
items to be inseparable. Nonetheless, he insisted that these items are distinct
in reality, prior to any act of intellect, and so are more than merely rationally
distinct.
Though the Scotistic formal distinction had a following, Suarez rejects it
in his Disputationes on the grounds that in most of the cases the distinction
of inseparable properties can be handled by means of a rational distinction
deriving from inadequate concepts. Moreover, he takes the odd case that
cannot be handled in this way to show that the formal distinction does not
pick out a metaphysically homogeneous class of items.51
Scotus did indicate at times, rather incidentally, that in addition to the
formal distinction there also is a lesser modal distinction; a typical example
here is the distinction between a quality and its mode of intensity. Though
this further distinction did not become a settled part of Scotus’s metaphys-
ical system,52 one can find a development of it in later scholastics influenced

50 For discussion of Scotus’s formal distinction, see King 2003: 22–​26.

51 See DM VII.1.13, I.254ab. Suárez notes that some statements of the formal distinction are am-
biguous enough to apply to mutually separable items; see DM VII.1.16, I.255b.
52 As Pasnau indicates, a later summary of the theory of distinctions in the Scotistic Lexicon

scholasticum philosophico-​theologicum (1910) of Ferández Garcia does not even mention the modal
distinction (Pasnau 2011: 254n11).
42 The Metaphysics of the Material World

by Scotus. A source for this development that is particularly important for

Suárez is a commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics by the Portuguese Jesuit
Pedro da Fonseca (1528–​1599).53 In the course of this commentary, Fonseca
takes the Scotistic formal distinction to be only one among other interme-
diate distinctions ex natura rei, including three different kinds of modal dis-
tinction. With respect to the latter, what is most relevant here is the modal
distinction “of the third kind,” which involves items that are not themselves
res, but merely ways (modi) in which res exist. To this class of items belongs,
according to Suárez, those “that we call modes in the proper and technical
sense of the term.”54
Suárez is particularly taken by the view in Fonseca that a modus is not
something that has the reality of a res insofar as “it must inevitably be affixed
to something else to which it is per se and directly joined without the me-
dium of another mode” (DM VII.1.19, I.257b). An example of such a mode
that is common to Fonseca and Suárez is the inherence of an accident in a
substance.55 Indeed, Suárez sometimes gives the impression that he is merely
adopting Fonseca’s third kind of modal distinction, departing from him only
in making this the sole distinction ex natura rei that stands between the real
and rational distinctions.56 However, this impression is misleading: Suárez
also fundamentally reconfigures the distinction he receives from Fonseca.57
For Fonseca, it is a distinctive feature of a mode of the third kind that it has
no essence of its own, but merely exists through the essence of the res it mod-
ifies. This explains why Fonseca follows the suggestion in Scotus that a modal
distinction (at least in the form of a modal distinction of the third kind) is
less of a distinction than a formal distinction, the latter of which requires
that the inseparable items nonetheless have independent definitions, and so
distinct essences. In contrast, Suárez takes the Scotistic formal distinction
to amount in most cases merely to a rational distinction, and so to be less of

53 For biographical information concerning Fonseca, see Gomes 1966.

54 Fonseca’s account of the three-​fold modal distinction is from his commentary on Metaphysics
Delta; see Pedro da Fonseca 1964: II.400. His first kind of modes picks out items that are ex se dis-
tinct, such as sweet and white, whereas his second kind picks out items that are distinct not in re, but
only in reason, such as the modes by which being is contracted to its inferiors. Suárez protests—​with
some justification—​that a modal distinction does not hold in these two cases since the modes of the
first kind are really distinct, whereas modes of the second kind are merely rationally distinct; see DM
VII.1.19, I.257b.
55 For more on Suárez account of the mode of inherence, see §2.3.3.
56 As I indicate in §3.2.2, Fonseca also posits in addition to the formal distinction and the three-​

fold modal distinction a potential distinction among parts that are actually united. We will see that
Suárez takes this sort of distinction to reduce to a real distinction.
57 I follow here the view in Menn 1997: 245–​46; and Pasnau 2011: 254.
 Metaphysics and Material Modes 43

a distinction than his modal distinction, the latter of which holds in reality
rather than merely in reason. Moreover, Suárez insists that though a mode
cannot have an essence in the strict sense of “a nature sufficient of itself to
constitute an entity in the real order,” it nonetheless can have its own essence
in the broader sense of “[a]‌real principle that is constitutive of real being or
mode” (DM VII.1.30, I.261a).58 Indeed, it is only in virtue of having an es-
sence in the latter sense that a mode can be said to be distinct in reality, and
not merely in reason, from the res it modifies.
There is an implication of Suárez’s view of the diminished essence of
modes that will serve to distinguish his conception of modes from those of
Descartes and Spinoza. We will see that the latter two philosophers accept the
existence of modifications of modes.59 However, the indication in Suárez is
that a mode can modify only something that is itself a res. The reasoning here
is that a mode by definition modifies something that “has of itself its own in-
dependent reality intrinsically and entitatively” (habet per se suam realitatem
independenter intrinsice et entiative) (DM VII.2.6, I.263ab). But only a res,
and not a mode, can have such a reality. Thus, what is perfectly conceivable
to Descartes and Spinoza is entirely inconceivable to Suárez, namely, that a
mode have its own modifications.
Even so, we have seen that Suárez allows that modes have enough of a
reality to be distinguished more than merely rationally from the res they
modify. He appeals to this result in order to respond to the previously noted
argument that there can be only two kinds of basic distinction, real and ra-
tional. Suárez concedes that this is so when a real distinction holds between
any two items that have distinct essences, where these are broadly construed.
He sometimes distinguishes this broad sort of real distinction by calling it a
“distinction in reality.” However, Suárez also insists that there is another sort
of real distinction that holds between res that have distinct essences, where
these are more narrowly conceived as what explains the fact that a res “has
of itself its own independent reality intrinsically and entitatively.” It is this
narrower kind of real distinction that provides room for the modal distinc-
tion in reality that Suárez posits.
We can recognize the distinctive nature of Suárez’s modal distinction by
considering the examples Fonseca provides of his modes of the third kind.

58 See also Suárez’s later claim in the Disputationes, directed explicitly against Fonseca, that “as a

mode is distinguished in re from the res whose mode it is, so it has some esse of its own, equally and
proportionately distinct from that of the res” (DM XLVII.2.8, II.788a).
59 See §4.1.1 and §6.2.2.
44 The Metaphysics of the Material World

He offers not only the example of inherence that Suárez emphasizes, but also
examples of essential features of a res, such as the fact that it is complete or
incomplete, necessary or contingent.60 Indeed, essential features would seem
to provide better examples of something that has no essence distinct from
that of the res it modifies. However, Suárez insists on inherence as an ex-
ample of a mode precisely because it is something that the res it modifies can
exist without. The mere fact that a res and its modes differ with respect to de-
pendence shows that they have distinct essences (in a broad sense). Indeed,
it seems that for Suárez nonmutual separability is a definitive feature of the
modes he posits, as it certainly is not for Fonseca’s modes of the third kind.
To be sure, Suárez does speak of nonmutual separability as a “sign” of a
modal distinction, just as he had spoken of mutual separability as a sign of a
real distinction.61 But there is an important difference between the two cases.
We saw previously that whereas Suárez takes mutual separability to be suf-
ficient for a real distinction, he cannot allow that it is necessary. With re-
spect to the modal distinction, however, it is the converse: whereas Suárez
indicates that nonmutual separability is necessary for such a distinction, he
cannot allow that the former is sufficient for the latter. This is clear from the
case of the relation of creatures to God, which involves nonmutual separa-
bility but not a modal distinction. However, Suárez has a very special reason
for excluding a modal distinction in this case insofar as he accepts the non-​
Spinozistic position that God is incapable of modes. The real question is
whether there are examples from created beings of cases in which nonmutual
separability is not sufficient for a modal distinction.
Suárez in fact takes it to be “highly probable, as far as our knowledge goes”
that when two things are related by nonmutual separability, there is nothing
other than a modal distinction (DM VII.2.8, I.264b). He explains that the
qualifiers are required since we perceive distinctions on the basis not of the
things themselves, but only of the signs they exhibit. We can exclude a greater
distinction than the signs indicate by appealing to a version of “Ockham’s
razor,” according to which “a distinction does not occur in nature without
a sufficient cause or without necessity.” There is in addition the considera-
tion that the inseparability of one item from another seems to be a sufficient
basis for the conclusion that they are not distinct res. Suárez thus concludes
that “we conjecture with all probability that where a mutual separation is not

60 As Suárez himself notes in DM VII.1.19, I.257b. However, Suárez suggests that this is due mainly

to confusion on Fonseca’s part, rather than to any fundamental disagreement.

61 See DM VII.2.6–​8, I.263a–​64b.
 Metaphysics and Material Modes 45

possible, but only a nonmutual one, there is no distinction other than modal”
(DM VII.2.8, I.264b).
With respect to this highly probable conclusion, we need to set aside the
distinction between God and creatures, of course. But I have also mentioned
Suárez’s admission that mutual separability is not necessary for a real distinc-
tion in the case of two things that are “related as whole and part, or container
and contained” (DM VII.2.22, I.269b). Insofar as parts are separable from
the whole they constitute, but the whole is inseparable from its parts, we have
nonmutual separability but not a modal distinction. As we have seen, Suárez
holds that we do not need mutual separability to recognize a real distinction
in this case since it is simply obvious that a whole is not the same res as any
of its parts. But this same consideration shows that we cannot automatically
infer a modal distinction from the presence of nonmutual separability.
In Table 2.1, I indicate the exceptions in Suárez to the rules concerning the
relations of separability to the real and modal distinctions. These exceptions
explain his emphasis on the fact that mutual and nonmutual separability are
only signs of a real and modal distinction, respectively. Suárez can perhaps
defend the high probability of the signs by drawing attention to the idiosyn-
cratic nature of the real distinction in the cases of the relations of God to
creatures and of a whole to its parts. Even so, there is one final complication
for the claim that nonmutual separability is necessary for a modal distinction
that will be relevant for our consideration in the next chapter of the relation
of Suárez to Descartes. Suárez has a particular need to address this complica-
tion since in contrast to the case of the sufficiency of nonmutual separability,
he takes the necessity of this sort of separability for a modal distinction to
be not merely highly probable but evident. Suárez introduces this compli-
cation when he notes that the modal distinction does not appear to apply to
two different modes of the same res insofar as such modes “are often mutu-
ally separable from each other, which surely is a sign of a distinction greater

Table 2.1 Suárez on Distinctions and Separability

Real Distinction: Modal Distinction:

Mutual Separability Not Necessary Nonmutual Separability Not Sufficient
God and creatures God and creatures
Persons of the Trinity
Relation and its term (?)
Whole and its parts Whole and its parts
46 The Metaphysics of the Material World

than modal” (DM VII.1.25, I.259b). Since Suárez does want to insist that the
modes are merely modally distinct from each other, it seems that he cannot
take nonmutual separability to be necessary for a modal distinction.
Nonetheless, Suárez emphasizes that in this case there is a kind of
nonmutual separability that the modes share with respect to the res they both
modify. The fact that the modes are inseparable from the same res reveals
that they have a kind of identity with each other that precludes a real distinc-
tion. As indicated previously, Suárez does allow that the divine Persons are
really distinct even though they are identical to the same thing, namely, the
divine essence. Yet we also saw that Suárez takes this to be possible only for
an infinite being; for finite beings, the identity of two things with the same res
precludes a real distinction.
Suárez contrasts the modal distinction between different modes of the
same res with the distinction between modes of different res, which he takes
to be real. His argument again appeals to the inseparability of the modes
from the res they modify. Since the res are really distinct, so then must be the
modes. Suárez suggests further that there is a mutual separability of a mode
from the res the other mode modifies that is entirely lacking in the case where
the modes modify the same res (DM VII.1.26, I.260a). In fact, the issue is
more complicated than he indicates since on his own view there are cases
in which a mode of one res requires the existence of a different res: as when,
for instance, the mode of inherence in quantity requires the existence of the
really distinct subject in which the quantity inheres.62 Even so, modes of dif-
ferent res are identified with entities that are themselves really distinct, and
these really distinct entities are typically mutually separable.
We have in Suárez, then, a distinctive and rather sophisticated account
of the modal distinction. I noted in the first chapter that in the critique of
Spinoza in his Dictionaire, Bayle emphasizes the significance for early
modern metaphysics of the introduction in late scholasticism of a notion of
mode that is tied to the condition of nonmutual separability. We now are in
a position to definitively identify Suárez as the primary source of this no-
tion. Moreover, we are in a position to correct Bayle’s insinuation that this
notion is merely a revival of Aristotle’s own conception of accidents. In fact,

62 In Suárez’s terms, it is essential to such modes that they bear “transcendental relations” to enti-

ties that are distinct from the res that the modes modify. For more on Suárez on transcendental re-
lations, see notes 41 and 80. As indicated in note 96, Suárez holds that the really distinct subject to
which inherence immediately relates quantity is prime matter rather than the composite material
substance.
 Metaphysics and Material Modes 47

the historical sketch that I have provided indicates that the notion of mode
that Bayle highlights emerged from Suárez’s fundamental revision of a view
that Fonseca most likely developed on the basis of some incidental remarks
in Scotus. Even so, it turns out that Bayle is correct in suggesting that this no-
tion is not of limited technical interest, but rather has a central metaphysical
role to play. This suggestion is confirmed, in particular, by Suárez’s appeal to
his notions of mode and the modal distinction at some crucial points in his
consideration of the nature of material substances and their accidents. This
appeal presupposes a particular hylomorphic analysis of material substance
in Suárez, which can itself be understood to be an alternative to the earlier
analysis in the work of Aquinas. After considering the relation of Suárez to
Aquinas and other medieval scholastics on this issue, I turn to Suárez’s at-
tempt to invoke the substantial mode of the union in order to distinguish a
material substance from the hylomorphic elements that constitute it. Finally,
I discuss Suárez’s view of the nature of the accidental mode of inherence,
which serves to connect real accidents to the material substances in which
they inhere. To adapt a memorable phrase from Hume, these substantial and
accidental modes are for Suárez a kind of “cement of the universe” insofar as
they are crucial for the explanation of fundamental relations that hold in the
material world.63

2.3. The Metaphysics of Material Modes

2.3.1. The Structure of Material Substance

I indicated in the previous chapter that Aristotle introduces a hylomorphic

analysis of material substance in his Physics in order to explain substantial
generation and corruption, and that this analysis provided the basis for his
distinctive account in the Metaphysics of the nature of primary substances.64
The analysis provided the basis as well for accounts of material substance in
the later scholastic tradition, in which it was widely held that this kind of

63 For Hume, of course, it is his principles of association that are “to us the cement of the universe”

(from the abstract to his Treatise of Human Nature, in Hume 1978: 662). But whereas Hume has in
mind what binds our thoughts about the world, the modes in Suárez are what realize both material
substances and the connection of those substances to their real accidents.
64 See §1.2.2.
48 The Metaphysics of the Material World

substance possesses prime matter and substantial form as essential parts.65

These essential parts are to be distinguished from the integral parts of mate-
rial substances, which are the parts into which such substances can be phys-
ically divided. I will deal with Suárez’s account of integral parts in the next
chapter.66 In considering his treatment of essential parts here, I start with
the account provided in Aquinas, who was an important source not only for
Jesuit scholasticism in general, but for Suárez in particular.67 The basic view
in Aquinas is that prime matter is a principle of potentiality that allows a
subject to receive substantial form, whereas that form is a principle of actu-
ality that allows for the activity of the informed substance. Perhaps the most
controversial element of his account of material substance is his claim that
when it is considered in itself, apart from substantial form, prime matter can
be nothing more than a “pure potency” (potentia pura) that has no existence
“from itself.” One implication of this view, which Aquinas himself endorses,
is that not even God could create and conserve prime matter by itself, without
uniting it to a substantial form.
There are different interpretations of the Thomistic account of prime
matter in the literature. According to Robert Pasnau, for instance, Aquinas
endorses a kind of eliminativism according to which “talk of prime matter
does not introduce some sort of primitive, mysterious stuff,” but rather
indicates “the complete rejection of matter as any kind of stuff having in-
dependent ontological status” (Pasnau 2002: 131).68 In response to Pasnau,
Jeffrey Brower has insisted that Aquinas accepts a realism according to which
prime matter actually exists as a kind of spatially distributed “non-​individual
stuff,” extended portions of which serve as subjects for substantial forms
(Brower 2014: 127–​18).69 As we will see in the next chapter, however, the
view that Brower attributes to Aquinas may well be in some tension with the

65 As indicated earlier, however, there is some question whether Aristotle himself accepted the no-

tion of a single “prime matter” as a constituent of all material substances; see §1.2.2, at note 36.
66 See §3.2.2.
67 In a circular pertaining to the ratio studiorum of 1586, the fifth General of the Jesuits, Claudio

Aquaviva, wrote regarding “Saint Thomas” that “all his opinions whatever they may be (except those
concerning the immaculate conception of the Blessed Virgin) can be defended and should not be
abandoned except after lengthy examination and for serious reasons” (as quoted in Rochemonteix
1889: IV.11–​12n). Suárez in fact deviated from particular Thomistic doctrines, though he arguably
met the requirement of doing so only after “lengthy examination and for serious reasons.”
68 See Pasnau’s later reflections on his interpretation, which conclude with the remark that he

is “still willing to endorse, or at least not to give up” the view that Aquinas himself embraced the
eliminativist implications of his account of prime matter (2011: 37n2).
69 Cf. the discussion of Aquinas’s position in Kronen et al. 2000.
 Metaphysics and Material Modes 49

position of the latter that extension is only an accidental feature that prime
matter has in virtue of its relation to quantity.70
In any event, Suárez takes the view of the Thomists, at least, to be that prime
matter has no existence of its own.71 In response to this view, he emphasizes
the importance of distinguishing between the claim that prime matter is a
mere potential being (esse potentiam), and the claim that it is a being in po-
tency (esse in potentia) (DM XIII.5.12, I.417ab). Whereas the Thomists en-
dorse the former claim (at least as Suárez sees it), Suárez himself insists that
the latter claim is more proper insofar as it attributes to prime matter its own
intrinsic existence.72
Most later scholastics rejected Aquinas’s characterization of prime matter
as pure potency on the grounds that this matter must have some sort of reality
apart from substantial form. One prominent argument for the rejection—​
present, for instance, in the work of Scotus—​takes the Thomistic account of
prime matter to be incompatible with the role that Aristotle assigns to it. As
we have seen, in the Physics Aristotle posits matter as the underlying subject
that persists through substantial change. According to the view in Aquinas,
however, there is no single actual thing that persists; there is only the matter
before the change, to which a particular substantial form gives a certain ex-
istence, and the matter after the change, to which another substantial form
gives a different existence. Scotus protests that the prime matter that persists
must have its own existence independent of the substantial forms in order
for one to say, with Aristotle, that the very same subject underlies substantial
change.73
In his Disputationes, Suárez argues in addition that the very fact that prime
matter serves as a material cause requires that it have its own actual existence,
distinct from that of substantial form. As I have indicated, Suárez defines
a cause in general as that which “inflows being” into another. He follows
Aristotelian orthodoxy in distinguishing four kinds of causes: material,
formal, efficient, and final. For him, both material and formal causes are “in-
trinsic” insofar as they contribute their own being to the constitution of the

70 See §3.1.1.
71 Suárez attributes this position to “the disciples of Thomas” rather than to Aquinas himself, citing
in particular John Capreolus (1380–​1444), Paulus Barbus Soncinas (d. 1494), and Chrisostomus
Javellus (1470–​1538) (DM XIII.5.2, I.414b).
72 In effect, then, the suggestion in Brower 2014 is that Suárez’s critique of the Thomists fails to

apply to Aquinas himself insofar as the latter allows that prime matter is a kind of esse in potentia.
73 For discussion of this Scotistic line of argument, see Adams 1987: II.633–​47 and Cross 1998: 17–​

26. Brower takes this sort of argument to show that Aquinas himself could not have denied that prime
matter has its own existence in some sense; see 2014: 113–​19.
50 The Metaphysics of the Material World

effect, whereas efficient and final causes are “extrinsic” insofar as they are in-
volved in the production of an effect distinct in reality from themselves (DM
XII.3.9, I.391a).74 The sort of intrinsic material causality exercised by prime
matter requires that “matter in its own genus gives being, since the existence
of the effect depends on it and it itself gives its own entity with which the
being of the effect is constituted” (DM XII.2.4, I.384b–​385a). Thus, Suárez’s
account of material causality reinforces his Scotistic conclusion that prime
matter is a res with its own actual and intrinsic existence. Moreover, Suárez
follows Scotus in insisting that the fact that this matter is a res of that sort
reveals—​directly contrary to Aquinas’s own view—​that God can create and
conserve it by itself, without uniting it to any substantial form.75
Suárez allows that though prime matter has its own existence, it nonethe-
less is also an esse in potentia insofar as it serves as the potential aspect of
the composite material substance. In contrast, substantial form serves as the
active aspect of such a substance. Indeed, Suárez defines substantial form as
“the act of matter” that “constitutes with it the essence of a complete sub-
stance.” At the same time, however, he characterizes this form as “a certain
and simple incomplete substance” (DM XV.5.1, I.517a). And he indicates
that the same characterization applies to prime matter when he claims that
this matter and substantial form, “which are parts of physical substance, are
physically incomplete substances” (DM XXXIII.1.6, I.332a).76 The mere ad-
mission here that the essential parts count as substantial in their own right
reveals how far we are from the position in Aquinas that the only intrinsic
substantial existence involved in the case of a composite material substance
is that of the composite itself.
However, it is worth mentioning, if only briefly, that Suárez defends what
in the context of medieval discussions is a particularly controversial aspect
of a Thomistic account of material substance, namely, the view that each
such substance can have only one substantial form. This “unitarian” position

74 Suárez also claims that the notion of cause applies “first and maximally” to efficient causes, and

only “by analogy” to material and formal causes (DM XXVII.1.10, I.952a). For a brief discussion of
Suárez’s account of the four causes, see Schmaltz 2008: 29–​36. For a more detailed examination of
this account, see, on material causality, Åkerlund 2015; on formal causality, Richardson 2015; on effi-
cient causality, Schmid 2015a; and on final causality, Penner 2015.
75 See DM XIII.9.7–​8, I.534–​35. For a further consideration of Suárez’s particular account of the

actuality of prime matter, see Åkerlund 2015. For Scotus’s view on this issue, see the discussion in
Adams 1987: II.643–​45.
76 Suárez sometimes refers (somewhat confusedly) to form and matter as physical (though non-​

integral) parts, in order to distinguish them from the metaphysical parts of a material substance, such
as genera and differentia; see DM XXXIII.1.15, I.334b. Suárez compares these parts to the “secondary
substances” in Aristotle’s Categories, the latter of which we considered in §1.2.1.
 Metaphysics and Material Modes 51

conflicts with a kind of “pluralism,” popular in later scholasticism, that allows

for a material substance to have more than one substantial form, and in par-
ticular for the human composite to have material substantial forms in addi-
tion to the immaterial rational soul. An important argument for pluralism
concerns the case of the triduum, when Christ’s human body was in the tomb
for three days in separation from his human soul. It was held that the con-
tinuity of this body and its accidents with Christ’s living body required the
continuing presence of a “form of corporeality” (forma corporeitatis) that
serves to individuate this body. This form is present in Christ’s living body
along with his rational soul and perhaps other substantial forms as well.77
Suárez goes against the grain in insisting—​with Aquinas and the Thomists—​
that the unity of material substance requires that there be only one substan-
tial form for each such substance, with the rational soul serving as the sole
substantial form in the case of the human composite.78 Though Descartes
and Spinoza reject the appeal in Suárez and other scholastics to material sub-
stantial forms, we will discover that the scholastic dispute between unitari-
anism and pluralism nonetheless has some relevance to their accounts of the
material world.79
With respect to the issue of the unity of material substance, it is impor-
tant that Suárez claims that the prime matter and single substantial form
of a composite are only incomplete substances. We are to understand this
claim in terms of his view that prime matter and substantial form have
an essential “aptitude” to be united to constitute a single composite sub-
stance.80 Since they are mutually separable res, with their own intrinsic
existence, this is an aptitude that God can frustrate. Yet even when God

77 The case of the triduum is prominent in condemnations of Thomistic unitarianism in the four-

teenth century. Zavalloni 1951 is the classic study of the history of these condemnations. Though
there is widespread agreement among scholastic pluralists that animals and humans require more
than one substantial form, the details of different versions of pluralism differ. Whereas Scotus holds
that the human composite requires only the form of corporeality in addition to the rational soul,
for instance, Ockham claims that this composite requires a material sensory soul in addition to
the bodily form and the rational soul. See the discussion of Scotus’s position in Ward 2014, and of
Ockham’s position in Adams 1987: II.647–​69.
78 On Suárez’s responses to pluralism in defense of unitarianism, see Perler forthcoming.
79 In particular, we will discover in §5.3.1 that Descartes retains the view that the rational soul is

the single substantial form of the human composite, and in §7.2.1 that Spinoza has a kind of pluralist
conception of composite bodies (though with “natures” rather than substantial forms in a scholastic
sense).
80 See, for instance, DM XV.5.2, I.517b–​518a. In Suárez’s terms, this aptitude involves a transcen-

dental relation to something else. Though he defines this relation in different ways in different texts
(cf. notes 41 and 62, and 89 and 103), the aptitude is transcendental in the sense that it is essential to
the things related; see DM XLVII.3.12–​13, II.798a–​799a. In this sense the relation involved in the de-
pendence of creatures on God also counts as transcendental.
52 The Metaphysics of the Material World

does frustrate this aptitude by creating either without the other, it re-
mains true that what he so creates retains that aptitude. In contrast, the
substance that form and matter compose has no essential aptitude for
union with something else, and so it can be considered to be a complete
substance.
We can further understand this aptitude in terms of the fact that a
union is required for both substantial form and prime matter to actu-
alize certain fundamental potentialities. Substantial form is defined in
terms of particular powers involving, for instance, life and sensation,
which only a material being can exercise, and prime matter is defined
as a subject that is receptive of such powers. The powers of the form and
the receptivity of the matter are complementary, and they can be com-
pletely realized only by means of union. Of course, the fact that these es-
sential parts are mutually separable res shows that they can exist without
completely realizing their natural functions. Yet such an existence would
be incomplete simply in virtue of the fact that these functions cannot be
realized.81
It might seem, though, that Suárez’s appeal to the fact that essential
parts are only incomplete substances creates problems for the explana-
tion of the unity of material substance. From a Thomistic perspective,
at least, the only way to preserve such unity is to insist that material sub-
stance has only one substantial existence, namely, that which the sub-
stantial form gives to prime matter. But once one admits, with Scotus and
then Suárez, that material substance is composed of essential elements
that are themselves distinct substantial res with their own (incomplete)
substantial existence, it can seem as if this substance is itself merely an
aggregate of substances, and not itself something that has its own exist-
ence. It is in order to address this problem that Suárez introduces his no-
tion of the substantial “mode of union” (modus unionis) as something
that serves to distinguish a material substance from a mere aggregate of
its essential parts.

81 Suárez’s distinction between complete and incomplete substances serves to provide a response

to the objection that his admission that prime matter has a substantial existence requires that its re-
ception of substantial form involves only an accidental change (see, e.g., Kronen at al. 2000: 875–​76).
In particular, this distinction allows him to say that this reception involves a substantial change in-
sofar as the recipient is only an incomplete substance. There is thus a difference from the reception of
an accident in a complete substance composed of prime matter and substantial form.
 Metaphysics and Material Modes 53

2.3.2. The Substantial Mode of Union

Suárez’s notion of the substantial mode of union is a distinctive aspect of

his contribution to a scholastic debate over the ontological relation of a ma-
terial substance to its essential parts. He directly addresses this debate in a
section of his Disputationes devoted to the question of “whether material
substance is something distinct from matter and form taken together, and
their union” (DM XXXVI.3.1, II.486b). In this section Suárez distinguishes
anti-​reductionist and reductionist answers to this question. According to the
former, a composite substance is “in reality [re ipsa] distinct from its parts,
not only taken separately (which is certain and indubitable according to eve-
ryone), but also taken together, not only according to a real mode [realem
modum] that it joins to its parts, but also because it is a true being really dis-
tinct from them” (DM XXXVI.3.2, II.486b). One argument for this sort of
anti-​reductionism—​which we can find in Scotus and which our previous
remarks have anticipated—​is that “if the composed substance were not
something distinct from the parts taken together, it would not be more one
being [unum ens] than a pile of wood, or a house, or at least a white body as
such, because all these things are a multitude of their parts taken together and
united in some matter” (DM XXXVI.3.4, II.487a). The cases of the woodpile
and house involve the mere aggregation of distinct substantial res, whereas
the case of the white body involves the aggregation of a substantial res with
an accidental res. However, the point is that in neither case is there the sort
of unity required to be a genuine material substance. For this reason, says
the anti-​reductionist, such an item must be posited as distinct from the es-
sential elements as united.82 In contemporary terms, the slogan for the anti-​
reductionist is: composition is not identity.83
The contrasting reductionist view—​which according to Suárez is “the one
most received”—​is that a composite substance “is not in reality distinct, ei-
ther really or modally, from the essential parts taken together and united,
but no more than in reason and according to our manner of speaking” (DM

82 For the sake of completeness Suárez adds the position that the composite substance involves

the presence of a new mode in addition to the essential parts and their union; see DM XXXVI.3.5,
II.487a. In contrast to the other two views he considers, though, he attributes this view to no one.
Moreover, he indicates that the same reductionist argument that the invocation of a new res is not re-
quired in addition to the essential parts and their union applies also to the invocation of a new mode
in addition to these items; see DM XXXVI.3.11, I.489ab.
83 On the contemporary debate over the view of “composition as identity,” that is, the claim that a

whole is nothing other than a mereological sum of its parts, see Cotnoir 2014.
54 The Metaphysics of the Material World

XXXVI.3.6, II.487b). In contemporary terms, again, the slogan for the re-
ductionist is: composition is identity.84
One argument for reductionism, which we can find in later nominalists
such as William Ockham (1285–​1347), is that if the composite substance
is something distinct in reality from the parts that unites those parts into
a whole, then it seems that there is some further entity distinct from the
composite substance and its parts that unites these into a whole, and so on
without end (DM XXXVI.3.10, II.489a).85 Better to avoid the regress entirely
by simply identifying the composite substance with its parts taken together.
Suárez seems to endorse reductionism when he concludes that “the whole
substance is not distinguished from the parts taken together and really
united, either from the nature of things or in reality, but only by reason” (DM
XXXVI.3.9, II.488b). Nevertheless, he differs crucially from the nominalists
in his understanding of the sense in which the essential parts are “really
united.” According to the version of the reductionist view in the work of the
nominalist Gregory of Rimini (1300–​1358), for instance, union is something
that is not distinct in reality from the united prime matter and substantial
form, taken together. In Gregory’s terms, these two “are not joined by a new
entity, but by themselves [seipsis]; because their union is not a new entity
that joins them” (Gregory of Rimini 1979–​83: III.25–​26). If the union were
a res distinct from the united items, one could ask how this new item is itself
joined to the united items, any answer to which seems to start us on an infi-
nite regress. Gregory holds that this threat of infinite regress suffices to show
the superiority of the position that the union is not a new entity in addition
to the united items.
However, Suárez’s new modal distinction offers him a way of saying that
a real union adds an item distinct in reality from the united items taken to-
gether that does not fall prey to the problem of infinite regress. What is added
is not some new res, but rather a mode of union that is intrinsically united to
what it modifies. Thus, there is something in reality that distinguishes the
parts taken together from the unified composite, namely, the actual substan-
tial mode of union by which it is such a composite (DM XXXVI.3.8, II.488a).
Suárez indicates a need for this application of the modal distinction by
appealing to the case of the triduum that we considered briefly with respect

84 See again the discussion of the contemporary debate cited in note 83.
85 Though medieval nominalism is often associated with the denial of universals in nature, it is
better understood as a collection of different attempts to impose ontological parsimony on a variety
of fronts. There is an overview of this movement in Normore 1987.
 Metaphysics and Material Modes 55

to the issue of substantial form pluralism.86 What is relevant here is that

even though Christ’s body and soul existed during the triduum, they did not
constitute a composite substance. The story has it that Christ’s soul was not
present in the tomb during this time, having descended into hell. However,
Suárez insists that this soul could have existed with the body “in proximate
places, and even in the same space, although the composite substance would
not have existed if this presence were only local.” The conclusion is that “the
composite substance as such adds in reality some thing to the aggregate
of the two things and consequently distinct from them” (DM XXXVI.3.8,
II.488ab).
What is added here is a mode of union, which cannot exist apart from
the essential parts, even though the parts can exist apart from this mode,
as in the case of the triduum. The union is thus something that manifests
the sort of nonmutual separability that—​given Suárez’s own “highly prob-
able” argument—​allows us to say that it is modally distinct from the unified
parts. So there is a difference in reality between the aggregate of the essential
parts and the presence of the composite substance, as the anti-​reductionist
insists against the reductionist. Contrary to the anti-​reductionist view, how-
ever, the difference consists in the presence not of a res distinct from the
parts taken together with their union,87 but of the substantial mode of union
itself.
Recall that for Suárez a mode depends essentially on a particular subject.
With respect to the substantial mode of union, it might be thought to be an
option here that we have two “partial” modes that together constitute the
mode of union, one modifying the substantial form and the other the prime
matter. This option was in fact endorsed after Suárez in the 1617 Universam
Philosophiam . . . Disputationes of the scholastic Pedro Hurtado de Mendoza
(1578–​1641).88 As I indicate presently, moreover, the special case of the
human composite provides at least some support for Mendoza’s position.
Prior to Mendoza, however, Suárez insisted that it is “very probable (valde
probabilem) that only a single mode suffices for the union, and that this mode
“pertains more to the form.” The argument here depends on the fact that the
action of a natural agent in the generation of a material substance “terminates
at a form by educing or uniting it to matter. Therefore, whatever comes to be

86 See §2.3.1.
87 And also not of some mode in addition to the parts as really united; see note 82.
88 I owe this reference to the discussion in Anfray 2018.
56 The Metaphysics of the Material World

de novo is in a form as the formal terminus of action” (DM XIII.9.13, I.432a–​

433b).89 Thus, the fact that generation terminates in the substantial form
indicates that there is a mode of union that modifies this form. But once such
a mode is posited, according to Suárez, there is no need to posit an addi-
tional mode in matter to explain the union: the mode in the substantial form
suffices.
However, there is a difficulty that derives from the special case of the
human being, which comprises an immaterial rational soul. Suárez himself
considers the objection that in this case the mode of union cannot be said
to be “educed from the potentiality of matter” insofar as it is “proportionate
to” the rational soul and is “consequently, spiritual as the soul is.” Suárez’s
response to this objection is that this mode “completely depends on matter
and is in its own way extended along with matter,” and so has an aspect that
can be said to be “educed from the potentiality of matter” (DM XV.3.11,
I.516a). To say the least, this response is far from compelling; it is indeed
difficult to comprehend how an unextended spiritual subject could be said
to have a mode that is in any way extended. One can understand why some
later scholastics were inclined to explain the materiality of the mode of
union even in the case of the rational soul either by attributing such a mode
to matter as well as to the soul—​as in the case of Mendoza—​or by holding
that the mode somehow “straddles” the form and matter of a composite—​as
in the case, for instance, of the later Jesuit scholastic Rodrigo de Arriaga
(1592–​1667).90
Nevertheless, I indicate later that there are reasons connected to Suárez’s
system to reject the possibility of straddling modes.91 And one could per-
haps avoid the problem of the extension of a mode of an immaterial soul by
emphasizing Suárez’s claim that the mode of union is only in its own way
extended. That “way” could consist simply in the fact that the mode brings

89 Suárez himself confuses the issue at times by suggesting that the mode of union is something

that mediates between substantial form and prime matter. See, for instance, his description of this
mode as “some medium or connection [viniculum] between form and matter, that for this reason in
some way touches or affects both, and therefore that depends on both in becoming [in fieri] and in
being [in esse]” (DM XV.3.11, I.516a). But though he holds that the mode of union involves a “tran-
scendental” relation insofar as it “touches and affects” a matter that is really distinct from it (see also
note 41), his considered view seems to be that the subject of this mode is the form alone. Thanks to
Brian Embry for helping me to see this point.
90 See Roderigo de Arriaga 1632: 351a131–​32.
91 See §3.3.2, around note 81.
 Metaphysics and Material Modes 57

about a relation to extended matter. What is “educed from the potentiality

of matter,” then, is just this relation, which itself requires the receptivity of
matter.92
Even if this line of thought serves to save Suárez from the problem of
attributing extension to a spiritual mode of union, there are two addi-
tional problems that he confronts concerning the nature of this mode.
The first concerns his claim that since the Aristotelian distinction be-
tween substance and accident is exhaustive, and since the mode of union
is something that serves to constitute a complete substance, this mode
must itself be, with substantial form and prime matter, “an incomplete
substance . . . and not an accident” (DM XXXII.1.16, II.316b–​317a).
Though he was at pains earlier in the Disputationes to emphasize the
difference between res and their modifications, Suárez now appears to
take back that position in holding that the mode of union is not only a
res (that is, either a substance or a real accident) but further a kind of
substance.
Suárez’s claim that the mode of union is a substance was popular in the
work of later Jesuit scholastics such as the aforementioned Arriaga along
with Francisco de Oviedo (1602–​1651).93 However, it seems to me that in
Suárez, at least, such a claim can be given a deflationary reading. Recall
Suárez’s claim in Disputatio VII that the fact that a mode is inseparable from
its subject shows that it does not have “of itself its own independent reality
intrinsically and entitatively” (DM VII.2.6, I.263ab).94 Rather, the mode
inherits the intrinsic and entitative independent reality of the res it modifies.
This explains why Suárez sometimes says that a mode “has a certain identity
with” its res (see, e.g., DM VII.1.26, I.260a). The only res-​like identity that
can be assigned to the mode of union is that of an incomplete substance,
since the substantial form that it modifies is itself such a substance. Even so,
the mode will not count as an incomplete substance in addition to the sub-
stantial form it modifies, insofar as it has an essential dependence on that
form that is incompatible with a real distinction from it. In Suárez’s terms,
modes of union are merely “reduced” (revocatur) to the category of sub-
stance insofar as they “have a real identity” (habent realem identitatem) with

92 Thus, the view here would be that the mode is extended and educed from the potentiality of

matter only in the sense that it requires a special sort of transcendental relation to matter; see note 89.
93 See Roderigo de Arriaga 1632: 334b34, and Francisco de Oviedo 1663: II.347a–​49a.
94 See §2.2.2, after note 59.
58 The Metaphysics of the Material World

a substantial res (DM XXXII.1.14, II.316a). It is for this reason that they
count as substantial modes.
The second additional problem for Suárez’s account of the mode of
union concerns its implication that the composite material substance es-
sentially depends for its existence on the presence of a mode that is in
some sense accidental. Since a substantial form can exist apart from its
union with matter, its mode of union cannot be essential to it. In Suárez’s
view, this mode may seem to be essential to the unified composite sub-
stance insofar as it serves to distinguish this composite from the mere ag-
gregate of its essential parts. But since a substance is prior in nature to its
accidents, it would appear to be the case that a material substance cannot
depend for its existence on an accidental feature of the substantial form
that composes it.
To my knowledge, Suárez does not address this particular problem in the
course of his treatment in the Disputationes of the mode of union. However,
I think we can discover a clue to its answer in his consideration in this text
of the nature of the dependence of creatures on God. Suárez appeals to the
fact that creatures depend essentially on God in support of the position that
the notion of being applies only by analogy of intrinsic attribution to God
and creatures.95 Nonetheless, he also holds that the specific way in which
creatures depend on God is a mode of them insofar as “the dependence
under discussion is mutable and variable within the creatures, even while the
same entity that is made remains in existence.” Since there is nonmutual sep-
arability here, we have reason to say that the particular dependence is only
a mode of creatures (DM XX.4.12, I.772ab). To say that dependence is es-
sential to them is simply to say that they must be modified by some mode or
other of dependence on God.
Suárez offers an example here that is directly relevant to the discussion in
our next chapter. This is the example of the dependence of quantity on God.
Invoking the doctrine of the Eucharist (recall again Bayle), Suárez claims that
God conserves the very same quantity of the Eucharistic elements, though
whereas before consecration he conserved it as inhering in the substance of
those elements, after he conserves it as inhering in no subject. But the specific
dependence of the quantity on God before consecration differs from its par-
ticular dependence on him after, since before it depended on both God and

95 See the discussion in §2.1.

 Metaphysics and Material Modes 59

the substance of the Eucharistic elements, whereas after it depends on God

alone (DM XX.4.12, I.722b). Thus, while it is essential that quantity possess
some mode of dependence on God, it is not essential that it possess any par-
ticular such mode.
I think that something very similar can be said with respect to the relation
of the substantial mode of union to the material substance it serves to con-
stitute. Suárez need require only that a material substance have a substan-
tial form with some mode of that type, and not necessarily a specific token.
Such a specific token is tied to a particular exercise of the formal causality of
the substantial form (DM XV.6.7, I.520a). But the union of this form with
matter does not depend on such a particular exercise; other such exercises
in different circumstances, and thus other modes of union, can result in the
existence of the very same material substance. Thus, it is not essential to the
substance that it have a substantial form that is modified by this very substan-
tial mode of union.
We still have the consequence in Suárez that in the case of material
substances, there is a real distinction that does not involve mutual separa-
bility. The essential parts of a material substance can exist apart from that
substance and from each other, but the material substance cannot exist apart
from any of its essential parts. Here we see one reason for Suárez’s previ-
ously noted warning that the condition of mutually separability cannot hold
universally for a real distinction, even when restricted to creatures, since it
does not hold for things that are “related as whole and part” (DM VII.2.22,
I.269b). Again, the suggestion is that this exception is not troubling insofar
as it is simply evident that a whole cannot be identified with any of its parts.
Indeed, on Suárez’s view a material substance cannot even be identified with
its essential parts taken together. This substance can be identified only with
its essential parts taken together and as united by means of some substantial
mode of union that modifies the substantial form.
The response in Suárez to the Scotistic anti-​reductionist, then, is that one
can distinguish the composite material substance from its essential parts
taken together without positing a distinct res. What needs to be posited is
only some substantial mode that serves to unite these parts. Such a mode is
missing from a mere aggregate of the parts. Once his modal distinction is
in place, Suárez has a way of saving the reductionist conclusion that a com-
posite material substance is nothing beyond its essential parts as substan-
tially united.
60 The Metaphysics of the Material World

2.3.3. The Accidental Mode of Inherence

In his discussion of the modal distinction in the Disputationes, Suárez offers as

a primary example the fact that “in quantity, . . . which inheres in substance,
two aspects may be considered: one is the entity of quantity itself, the other is
the union or actual inherence of this quantity in the substance” (DM VII.1.17,
I.255b).96 Since quantity can exist without the actual inherence (as in the case of
the Eucharist), but not the actual inherence without the quantity, there is reason
to say that the inherence is a mode of the quantity.
In taking inherence to be a mode, Suárez means to deny that this adds “a real
entity that inheres and is united.” If inherence did add such an entity, we would
seem to be faced, once again, with an infinite regress, since this new entity itself
would need to inhere, and its inherence would need its own inherence to in-
here, and so on without end.97 The regress is blocked by the fact that inherence
itself “does not need a further union or inherence by which it may be united or
inhere,” and so is “merely a mode that of itself is the reason for union and inher-
ence” (DM VII.1.18, I.256a). Thus, the quantity inheres immediately by means
of a mode of itself.
In light of the later development of Suárez’s notion of mode in the early
modern period, it is significant that he says that inherence is something a cer-
tain kind of mode is, rather than something a mode in general does. Inherence
is involved only when one is dealing with the relation of one res to another really
distinct res. Since a mode is not really distinct from what it modifies, it cannot
itself be related to the latter by means of inherence. Rather, for Suárez, a mode
modifies immediately, by its own nature. In terms of his view, then, it simply
makes no sense to say that a mode inheres in some subject.
Suárez confronted the question of how widely the notion of inherence
applies to items in the accidental categories of Aristotle. On the Aristotelian
scheme handed down to the scholastics, there was a distinction among
accidents in nine categories: quantity, quality, relation, action, passion,

96 As we will discover in §3.1.2, after note 36, Suárez’s considered view is that quantity inheres di-

rectly in prime matter, and only indirectly in a material substance, by means of the prime matter that is
an essential part of that substance.
97 However, Scotus had claimed that the regress can be blocked since though the inherence must be

a res distinct from what inheres, given that there is at least nonmutual separability, the inherence of
that inherence is something distinct from the original inherence only in reason. For discussion of this
Scotistic argument, see Pasnau 2011: 209–​13 and the literature cited in 210n13. As indicated pres-
ently, however, Suárez does not see the need to say that the original inherence is a res in the first place.
 Metaphysics and Material Modes 61

duration, place (ubi), position (situs), and having.98 There is a conception of

the categories, common to Thomists and Scotists, according to which items
in all of the accidental categories are distinct res. Given this conception, the
notion of inherence would apply to every accident. However, there was a
nominalist alternative to this conception in Ockham that held that only cer-
tain qualities are accidental res, with all of the other accidents being merely
“extrinsic denominations” that are not really distinct from the relevant res.99
Suárez offers a kind of via media, insisting that quantity as well as some quali-
ties are res, and so “real accidents,” while also allowing that accidents in other
categories are merely extrinsic denominations (namely, relation, as we have
seen, but also passion, when, position and having).100 Beyond his realism
concerning quantity, however, what principally distinguishes Suárez’s posi-
tion from Ockham’s form of nominalism is his claim that items in some of
the categories are modes in his new sense (namely, shape in the category of
quality, and also action and place). Among these various kinds of accidents,
Suárez takes only the real accidents to be capable of genuine formal causality.
But in his view, this formal causality “is nothing other than the actual union
or inherence of the accident in the subject” (DM XVI.1.6, I.568a). Thus,
among the traditional accidents, the notion of inherence, as the causality of
the formal cause, can apply to real accidents alone. The accidents that are
modes or extrinsic denominations cannot be said to inhere at all. This point
is reflected in Suárez’s conclusion that no single notion of accident applies
across the accidental categories, not even one deriving from an analogy of
intrinsic attribution.101
It could well be argued that Suárez’s view of the heterogeneity of accidents
serves to undermine the significance of the Aristotelian categories. Suárez
himself is a traditionalist in defending the categorical scheme, and indeed in
using this scheme to provide the structure of his Disputationes. However, he
is no longer in a position to claim that the categories track the fundamental

98 This scheme derives, of course, from Aristotle’s own Categories. For various perspectives on the

role of the categories in medieval thought, see the articles collected in Biard and Rosier-​Catach 2003
and in Newton 2008.
99 For more on this form of nominalism in Ockham, see §3.1.1.
100 This last point is important, given the tendency in the literature to attribute to Suárez the view

that all accidents other than the real accidents are modes; see, for instance, Menn 1997: 242, and
Richardson 2015: 71. For a correction of Menn’s position, see Pasnau 2011: 258n15.
101 For the claim that only real accidents inhere, and not accidental modes or extrinsic

denominations, see DM XVI.1.21–​24, I.573a–​574b. For the claim that there is no single “objective
concept” of accident that applies across the accidental categories, see DM XXXVII.1.5, II.492b–​493a.
The contrast here, of course, is with the case of being, which involves a universally applicable objec-
tive concept that—​as we have seen in §2.1—​derives from an analogy of intrinsic attribution.
62 The Metaphysics of the Material World

structure of reality, as Thomists and Scotists tended to insist. Rather, he

defends the categories only as the best scheme for our own “method of inves-
tigating and knowing” (DM XXXIX.1.8, II.507a). In this respect he is in
line with the nominalists. But a distinctive feature of Suárez’s metaphysical
system is its implication that the most fundamental distinction with respect
to accidental reality is that between real accidents and accidental modes (set-
ting aside here extrinsic denominations, which lack real existence). Though
real accidents have an “aptitudinal inherence” (aptitudinalem inhærentiam)
by which they are naturally disposed to inhere in substance, they nonethe-
less possess a “real entity” that allows for the possibility that they subsist
apart from substance (DM XXXVII.2.9, II.495ab). In contrast, accidental
modes essentially possess rather “an actual affection of or conjunction
with [note: not inherence in!] the thing of which it is a mode” (actualem
affectionem seu conjunctionem cum re cujus est modus) (DM XXXVII.2.10,
II.495b). What carves nature at the joints for Suárez, then, is the distinction
not among the nine accidental categories, but rather between real accidents
that essentially possess merely aptitudinal inherence, on the one hand, and
accidental modes that essentially are actual affections of a modified subject,
on the other.102
Just as he takes the substantial mode of union to modify the substantial
form, so Suárez holds that the accidental mode of inherence modifies a form
that is itself a real accident. And just as the substantial mode constitutes a real
union of essential parts, so inherence constitutes the union of an accident
to a substance that “is not metaphorical or apparent, but true and physical,
because it is by a true and real union to another” (DM XIV.1.7, I.463b). To
be sure, the unity that the accidental mode of inherence constitutes is that of
an ens per accidens rather than, in the case of the substantial mode of union,
of an ens per se. For this reason, Suárez admits that the notion of formal cau-
sality applies only analogically to these two modes (DM XVI.1.4, I.567ab).
Nonetheless, he insists that there is a true formal causality involved in the

102 At one point Suárez considers the objection that the traditional Aristotelian division of being

(ens) into substance and accident is not exhaustive because it leaves out modes. His interesting re-
sponse is that modes can be excluded from this division because they have no independent reality
but rather share the reality of the res they modify: substantial in the case of substantial modes, and
accidental in the case of accidental modes (DM XXXII.1.13, II.315b–​316a). As we will discover,
developments in Descartes and Spinoza serve to increase the reality of modes, and so also their sig-
nificance as ontological features of the material world; see Figure 6.1.
 Metaphysics and Material Modes 63

uniting of a real accident with a substance, and thus a true mode of inherence
in the accident.103
In the case of both the substantial mode of union and the accidental
mode of inherence, there is a kind of identity with a res that nonetheless is
compatible with the fact that the mode is accidental to that res. The lack of
an essential connection is revealed simply by the fact that a real accident
can exist apart from its inherence in substance, just as a substantial form
can exist apart from its union with matter. What is essential to accidental
and substantial forms is merely the “aptitude” to inhere or unite, respec-
tively. Actual inherence and actual union thus add something real to the
res they modify, though not something that is itself a distinct res: a fact that
Suárez would take to be intelligible only in terms of his special category
of modes.
At this point we might seem to be far away from the metaphysics of the
material world in Descartes and Spinoza. After all, both of these modern
thinkers reject the existence of the material substantial forms104 and prime
matter that constitute scholastic material substances (besides human
beings), as well as of the real accidents of those substances. They would
therefore seem to have no need for Suárez’s modes of union and inherence
insofar as these are to be understood in terms of such scholastic elements.
Yet there remains the fact—​to which Bayle’s remarks have served to draw
our attention—​that both Descartes and Spinoza were influenced by the
metaphysical theory of distinctions that informs Suárez’s account of the
material world.105 Moreover, and more immediately, we still need to con-
sider a view of the material accident of quantity that will in the end serve
to link Suárez to Descartes and therefore—​though less directly than Bayle’s
remarks intimate—​to Spinoza.

103 Because the accidental mode of inherence both requires something really distinct from what it

modifies and produces the relation to that thing, it involves a transcendental relation; see notes 41,
62, and 89.
104 At one point Descartes explicitly allows that the immaterial human soul is “the true substan-

tial form of man” (Descartes to Regius, January 1642, AT III.506). In §5.3.1, I have more to say about
Descartes’s view of the relation of the human soul to the body with which it is united.
105 See note 102.
 3
Quantity, Integral Parts, and Boundaries

In Meditation V, Descartes begins by emphasizing his “distinct imagination”

of body in terms of “quantity that the common philosophers call continuous”
(quantitatem quam vulgo Philosophi appellant continuam). In particular, he
distinctly imagines “the extension in length, breadth and depth of this quan-
tity, or rather of the quantified thing,” and also enumerates “various parts in
it,” to which he assigns “various sizes, shapes, positions and local motions”
(AT VII.63). This “common” view of continuous quantity or extension also
provides the basis Bayle’s objection to Spinoza that “it is impossible that the
[material] universe be one unique substance, for everything that is extended
necessarily has parts, and everything that has parts is composite” (DHC,
“Spinoza,” rem. N, IV.259b).1 In this chapter, I consider the scholastic con-
text of this line of objection, with particular emphasis on the conception in
Suárez of quantity, its parts, and their boundaries.
It might be thought that this sort of consideration is anachronistic insofar
as it reads back into scholastic philosophy a concern with the notion of con-
tinuous quantity in non-​scholastic early modern philosophy that is foreign to
it. After all, on the traditional scheme that derives from Aristotle’s Categories,
quantity is merely one among eight other kinds of accidental categories.
However, Aristotle himself notes that quantity has certain features that the
other accidents lack, such as the fact that it admits of contraries.2 Moreover,
this particular accident plays an important—​and controversial—​role in
medieval discussions of the material world. In addition, there were heated
disputes within scholasticism over the proper account of the mereology of
quantitative parts and the proper analysis of the boundaries that contain
those parts. There is thus ample reason to consider scholastic views on quan-
tity, despite the fact that there is no scholastic precedent for the conclusion,

1 See the discussion of this passage in §1.1.2.

2 Cat VI, 6a26–​36; CW I.10. According to Ockham, the fact that Aristotle holds that only substance
can remain even while admitting contraries shows that he did not take quantity to be something
distinct in reality from substance; see Summa logicae I.44, in William Ockham 1974–​88: I.132. I con-
sider Ockham’s “nominalist” account of quantity further in §3.1.1.

The Metaphysics of the Material World. Tad M. Schmaltz, Oxford University Press (2020).
© Oxford University Press.
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190070229.001.0001
 Quantity, Integral Parts, and Boundaries 65

common to Descartes and Spinoza, that an extension that is independent of

both prime matter and substantial form constitutes the entire nature of ma-
terial substance.3
In §3.1, I begin with the different accounts of the metaphysical status of
quantity within scholasticism. What emerges from medieval discussions of
this issue is a distinction between the “realist” view that quantity is an acci-
dent that is really distinct from material substance and its sensible qualities,
on the one hand, and the “nominalist” view that quantity is not so distinct
from the extension of the parts of material substance and its qualities, on the
other. Though Suárez defends a version of realism concerning quantity, he
also is distinctive in insisting that this accident has its own reality distinct
from that of mere extension insofar as it bears a special relation to impene-
trability. The issue of the relation of quantity to impenetrability will turn out
to be relevant to the discussion in the next chapter of Descartes’s account of
extension.4
In §3.2, I turn to various scholastic views of the mereological relations be-
tween “integral parts” and the “wholes” they compose. There is an important
distinction here between a “possibilism” that takes the parts to be only “po-
tentially” distinct from each other and the continuous wholes they compose,
on the one hand, and an “actualism” that takes the parts to be actually distinct
entities even when they are united in such a whole, on the other. Though
Suárez officially endorses a form of actualism, his own position incorporates
certain elements of possibilism.
Finally, in §3.3, I conclude with a consideration of scholastic debates over
the ontological status of the “indivisible” boundaries of parts, namely, points,
lines, and surfaces. Here again, there is a basic distinction in medieval philo­
sophy between various forms of realism, which posit the indivisibles as enti-
ties distinct in reality from divisible parts, and nominalism, which requires
that indivisibles are only rationally distinct from such parts. And here again,
Suárez promotes a form of realism, though in this case his insistence that the
indivisibles are res distinct from the parts they limit is not entirely unprob-
lematic for him, given his acceptance of the new category of modes.

3 On Descartes’s relation to the scholastics on this issue, see Epilogue, note 19. I do not mean

to suggest here that there is a single understanding of this conclusion common to Descartes and
Spinoza. Indeed, I will argue in later chapters that they had significantly different conceptions of the
attribute of extension.
4 See §4.2.
66 The Metaphysics of the Material World

3.1. Quantity and Impenetrability I

3.1.1. Medieval Quantity

In c­ hapter 1, I cited the claim in Bayle’s critique of Spinoza that “the miser-
able disputes that gave rise to Christendom,” regarding the doctrine of the
Eucharist, gave rise to the anti-​Aristotelian view that accidents can exist apart
from their subjects.5 However, a consideration of the account of the Eucharist
in the work of Thomas Aquinas reveals the need to correct this claim in two
ways. First, the fact that Aquinas attempted to modify the conception of
accidents to accommodate the Eucharist centuries prior to the “miserable
disputes” between Catholics and Protestants during the Reformation reveals
that these disputes were not the sole source of the re-​conceptualization of
the notion of accident in scholastic philosophy. But secondly, and for our
purposes more importantly, Aquinas singled out the accident of quantity as
the only one requiring existence without a subject in this sacrament. Thus, a
Thomistic “realism” concerning material accidents, according to which they
can exist by themselves, covers only this particular accident.
I start here with Aquinas’s account of the Eucharist published in the third
part of his Summa Theologiae.6 This text offers a treatment of “the accidents
remaining in this sacrament” that assumes as a truth of faith—​later con-
firmed as such post-​Reformation by the Council of Trent—​that after con-
secration the accidents of the Eucharistic bread and wine remain without
inhering in any substance (ST IIIa.77, LVIII.124–​61). However, Aquinas
draws an important distinction between two different ways in which the
accidents continue to exist. Sensible qualities continue to exist in a subject,
since they inhere in the “dimensive quantity” (quantitas dimensiva) of the
bread and wine. In contrast, that quantity exists without inhering in any
other subject.
In the Eucharist, quantity can be called “dimensive” insofar as sensible
qualities come to have integral parts with distinct spatial dimensions only by
inhering in quantity. That this relation is not restricted to this supernatural
case is indicated by Aquinas’s remark that since in the Eucharist “the accidents
remain according to the being they first had [remanent . . . secundum esse
quod prius habeant],” it must be that “all the accidents remain founded on

5 See §1.1.3, after note 17.

6 This section was completed by others after Aquinas’s death, but it draws on the views in his own
Sentences commentary.
 Quantity, Integral Parts, and Boundaries 67

dimensive quantity” (ST IIIa.77.2, LVIII.132). Thus, after consecration the

sensible qualities remain with the same being since they retain the same in-
herence in dimensive quantity that they possessed previously.
The case of the Eucharist thus reveals that dimensive quantity has a spe-
cial status insofar as it is a material accident that is able to exist on its own.
Aquinas indicates that one reason quantity can exist in this way is that it
“has in itself a certain individuation” since “we can imagine many lines of
the same kind, but all different because of their position, and this position
is the very idea of this quantity. For it is the very definition of a dimension
to be quantity having position” (AT IIIa.77.2, LVIII.134). In contrast to sen-
sible qualities, then, dimensive quantity is an intrinsic source of the spatial
individuation of integral parts, and so does not need to inhere in anything in
order to have such parts.7
Aquinas allows, then, that dimensive quantity is able to exist on its own as
an ultimate subject of other accidents. The way is thus prepared for the con-
ception of quantity as just such a subject. Indeed, Descartes later employs a
similar sort of conception in constructing his fable in Le Monde concerning a
world that contains not “the ‘prime matter’ of the philosophers” but rather “a
perfectly solid body that uniformly fills the entire length, breadth and depth
of this huge space in which we have brought our mind to rest” (AT XI.33).
Of course, Aquinas could protest that by its very nature dimensive quantity
depends on a material substance constituted by prime matter and substan-
tial form, and so can exist on its own not naturally, but only by means of an
extraordinary act of God.8 Even so, one can see how someone like Descartes,
who rejects the whole category of real accidents, could take the sort of quan-
tity that Aquinas posits in the Eucharist to provide the model for the concep-
tion of matter in the natural world.9
Aquinas insists that sensible qualities have spatial dimensions only in
virtue of their inherence in dimensive quantity: this explains why, in order

7 Pasnau has attributed to Aquinas the view that “the miracle of the Eucharist . . . requires that

God can change an accident’s modus essendi, so that what was a dependent being now takes on an
independent mode of existence” (2011: 188; citing Aquinas’s discussion in Quodibet IX.2.2). In par-
ticular, God must change the modus essendi of dimensive quantity, the one accident that has an in-
dependent mode of existence in the sacrament. However, in the Summa Theologiæ, at least, Aquinas
responds to the objection that an accident cannot subsist on its own given that this conflicts with its
nature as an accident by emphasizing that dimensive quantity can subsist on its own “not because it is
without a subject from the power of its essence, but from God’s sustaining power” (ST IIIa.77.1 ad 2,
LVIII.128). The indication here seems to be that the change is on the side of God’s conserving power,
and not on the side of the essence of the accident.
8 See note 7.
9 I return in §4.2 to a consideration of Descartes’s account of quantity.
68 The Metaphysics of the Material World

to retain the same nature, the qualities of the Eucharistic elements must con-
tinue to inhere in quantity even after consecration. Indeed, Aquinas suggests
that even material substance and the prime matter that composes it depend
on quantity for their possession of integral parts. With respect to prime
matter, I mentioned in the previous chapter the view of Brower that Aquinas
identifies it with a kind of spatially distributed “non-​individual stuff ” that is
composed of extended parts.10 In this respect, the prime matter that Brower
finds in Aquinas seems similar to the essentially extended prime matter that
some have found in Aristotle.11 However, it seems that Aquinas cannot take
prime matter to be intrinsically composed of such parts, given that he accepts
the position—​which Brower attributes to him—​that this matter “is extended
only derivatively or by virtue of possessing quantity (or better, by being a
proper part of a substance that possesses quantity)” (Brower 2014: 250).
Prime matter has spatially distributed parts, then, not in virtue of its own na-
ture, but rather in virtue of its relation to quantity.
Moreover, Aquinas seems to be committed to the view that the very indi-
viduation of material substance depends on quantity. For it seems that he can
allow neither substantial form nor prime matter to provide a basis for indi-
viduation: not the form, because it is the form only of a species,12 and not the
matter, because it is the same for different members of the same species. The
apparent implication here is that only dimensive quantity can serve to distin-
guish a particular individual from others of the same kind.13
Aquinas continues to hold to the orthodox Aristotelian view that contin-
uous quantity is an accident that inheres in material substance as its subject.
But now there is the question of how it could possibly provide a basis for the
individuation of a material substance. After all, as later critics of Aquinas will
insist, the substance must already be individuated in order to serve as a sub-
ject for quantity. Though it is not entirely clear to me that Aquinas has a way
out of this problem, perhaps one could draw here on his distinctive view that
prime matter is a “pure potentiality” that has no existence on its own apart
from being actualized by substantial form.14 In order to receive the accident

10 See §2.3.1, at note 69.

11 See §1.2.2, at note 35.
12 The rational human soul is a special case for Aquinas since it not only is the form of the human

species but also is itself a subsisting individual. Nonetheless, in Aquinas’s view this individuality does
not serve to individuate the human body and its integral parts.
13 On Aquinas’s account of dimensive quantity as an individuating principle, see Owens 1988 and

Wippel 2000: 351–​75.

14 See the discussion of this view, and of the scholastic critique of it, in §2.3.1.
 Quantity, Integral Parts, and Boundaries 69

of quantity, matter must first be united to substantial form. Aquinas also

indicates that this union is required to individuate all accidents of matter,
including its quantity.15 But it might be that matter need only be actualized,
and not fully individualized, in order to receive dimensive quantity. Once it
is actualized, it can receive, and so individuate, this quantity, which reception
in turn serves to fully individuate both the matter and its substantial form.16
I do not want to insist that this solution to the problem of individuation
is acceptable either in itself or to Aquinas. Instead, I want simply to draw at-
tention to two features of Aquinas’s account of quantity that drew later nom-
inalist dissent. The first is the apparent implication that the individuation
of both material substances and their integral parts depends on an accident
that is extrinsic—​and posterior—​to them. The second is the explicit claim
that an extrinsic quantity is necessary for the differentiability of the integral
parts of sensible qualities. I focus in particular on the emphatic rejection in
Ockham of this specific version of quantity realism. Nonetheless, I also want
to draw attention to the fact that Ockham’s form of nominalism leaves intact
Aquinas’s view of the intimate relation between the quantity and extension of
integral parts, a view that Suárez will be concerned to reject.
In his Disputationes, Suárez provides an especially succinct summary
of the main nominalist alternative to Thomistic quantity realism. As he
describes this view, “bulk quantity” (quantitas molis) is

not a thing distinct from substance and material qualities. Rather it is the
being [entitas] of each of them by which it itself has that bulk and extension
of parts that is in bodies; that being is called matter insofar as it is a substan-
tial subject, and quantity insofar as it has extension and distinction of parts.
(DM XL.2.2, II.533a)17

15 Thus, Aquinas accepts as a general principle that “accidents derive their individuation from

the subject that receives them” (ST IIIa.7.2, LVIII.132). This is the basis for Aquinas’s denial that
accidents can pass from one subject to another.
16 In his earlier writings, Aquinas holds that individuation derives not from accidental “determi-

nate” (terminatæ) dimensions, but rather from prior “indeterminate” (indeterminatæ) dimensions.
Though the appeal to indeterminate dimensions drops out of Aquinas’s later writings, it might be that
he needs something like an indeterminate subject of quantity for his account of individuation to even
have a chance of being intelligible.
17 As proponents of this line of thought, Suárez mentions not only Ockham but also the nominales

Peter Auriol (1280–​1322), Adam Wodeham (1298–​1358), Albert of Saxony (1320–​1390), Gabriel
Biel (ca. 1420–​1495), and John Major (1467–​1550).
70 The Metaphysics of the Material World

One argument in Ockham for this nominalist position puts particular pressure
on the suggestion in Aquinas that a material substance can have parts with dis-
tinguishable dimensions only in virtue of a quantity that is accidental to it. In his
Tractatus de corpore Christi, Ockham claims against such a suggestion:

It must not be said that substance does not have parts except through a
quantity that is a res distinct from substance, for substance does not depend
on any of its accidents, neither by consequence do the parts of substance
depend on the parts of accidents. (William Ockham 1967–​88: X.160)

An accident can inhere in a substance, or the integral parts of the accidents

in such parts of that substance, only if the substance and its parts are already
fully individuated. But then the individuation of the substance and its in-
tegral parts cannot depend on any accident. In fact, a material substance is
extended in space not by means of any accident of quantity, but merely by
means of the fact that “it is composed of substantial parts distant from one
another in space or location” (William Ockham 1967–​86: X.112).
Ockham offers a further argument against quantity realism that will be
relevant to my later consideration of the version of such realism in Suárez.
This argument, again from Ockham’s Tractatus, involves the following rhe-
torical considerations:

Who among the faithful will dare to say that God, if he wills to sepa-
rate or destroy an absolute accident inhering in a subject without de-
stroying its substance, that God is compelled to move that substance
or a part of it from one place to another? For if natural causes can force
out and draw in to the same subject many absolute accidents, without
that subject’s changing locally, then cannot God . . . ? (William Ockham
1967–​86: X.119–​20)

Ockham is relying here on the principle—​which Aquinas does not share—​

that “the infinite and incomprehensible power of God can naturally make
and conserve any prior absolute res without an absolute res that is really dis-
tinct in itself as a whole and that is naturally posterior” (William Ockham
1967–​86: X.115).18 Ockham takes it to follow from this that God can “destroy
an absolute accident inhering in a substance and conserve that substance,
18 For instance, Aquinas holds that prime matter is a res distinct from substantial form, even

though not even God can create the former in separation from the latter.
 Quantity, Integral Parts, and Boundaries 71

without a local change to that substance” (William Ockham 1967–​86: X.119).

But if God were to destroy quantity without local change, the material sub-
stance would have the same spatial relations among its parts. Since God
cannot eliminate the quantity without local motion, quantity itself cannot be
a res distinct from material substance and its integral parts.
The quantity realist might well object to the nominalist assumption that if
quantity is an accident, God must be able to eliminate it without a local change.
Perhaps there is some sort of necessary connection between quantity and the
locational position of parts that renders this impossible.19 However, Ockham
could perhaps argue against such a connection in the following manner. Since
a material substance and its integral parts are fully individuated apart from any
relation to quantity, there seems nothing that could preclude God from con-
serving that substance with its parts in different locations prior to infusing it
with quantity. But then it seems that there is no work for the quantity to do that
could not be done simply by the material substance, its parts, and their spatial
relations. Of course, this argument is weaker than the one that Ockham offers
since it shows not that quantity could not be an absolute accident, but rather
that such an accident can be eliminated through the use of “Ockham’s razor.”
Somebody like Aquinas still might resist the claim that the integral parts of ma-
terial substance can be individuated apart from quantity. As we will discover
presently, however, Suárez accepts Ockham’s account of individuation, as well as
his view that the locational position of integral parts does not require the acci-
dent of quantity. Thus, as a quantity realist, Suárez bears the burden of justifying
the postulation of an accidental quantity.
Ockham did confront the objection that quantity must be a res distinct
from material substance given the implication of the doctrine of the Eucharist
that the quantity of the bread and wine can persist after consecration without
inhering in any subject. However, his response is that it is not the quantity of
the bread and wine that persists, since that is simply the integral parts of the
substance of the Eucharistic elements as spatially distributed. Rather, it is the
separate quantities of the sensible qualities—​that is, the distributions of their
parts in space—​that persist in the sacrament.20 As in the case of material

19 As Pasnau indicates, this is precisely the objection to Ockham that Richard of Campsall (ca.

1280–​1350) offers in his Logica (ca. 1325); see Pasnau 2011: 290–​91. Pasnau himself is sympathetic to
this line of objection.
20 Ockham’s attempt to accommodate the Eucharist did not placate his critics. While chancellor of

Oxford, John Luttrell († 1335) compiled a list of Ockham’s purported heretical views that included his
theory of the Eucharist, and he was part of a papal commission in Avignon that examined Ockham.
72 The Metaphysics of the Material World

substance itself, so the qualities have quantities that are intrinsic to them in-
sofar as they involve only spatial relations among their integral parts.21 .

Ockham thus rejects both Aquinas’s claim that the quantity of a mate-
rial substance is extrinsic to it and his claim that qualities have quantitative
features only in virtue of their relation to the quantity of material substance.
Nonetheless, Ockham can agree with the view in Aquinas that only a quanti-
fied substance can have spatially distributed parts. With respect to this view,
the dispute is simply over whether the basis for this distribution is intrinsic
(Ockham) or extrinsic (Aquinas) to the substance. Moreover, Ockham could
agree with Aquinas that sensible qualities must be quantified in some manner
in order for their parts to have locational position. Again, the difference
concerns whether the required quantification derives from within (Ockham)
or without (Aquinas). The differences here are not trivial, of course, but these
points of agreement will serve to bring into sharp relief distinctive features of
the version of quantity realism in Suárez.

3.1.2. Suárez on Impenetrable Quantity

With respect to Suárez’s treatment of quantity, there is the initial observa-

tion that his account of the hylomorphic constitution and the individuation
of material substance is closer in several respects to Ockham’s than to the
account we find in Aquinas. As indicated in the previous chapter, for in-
stance, Suárez agrees with Ockham, as well as Scotus, in rejecting the claim in
Aquinas (or the Thomists) that prime matter has no being of its own insofar
as it is “pure potency.”22 Moreover, whereas Aquinas indicated that substan-
tial form can be individuated only in terms of “dimensive quantity,” Suárez
follows Ockham in insisting that such forms are fully individuated on their
own, apart from any relation to prime matter or quantity.23 Finally, Suárez
argues—​in line with a position we have seen in Ockham—​that accidental

Ockham was never formally condemned for these views. He was excommunicated in 1328, but this
was over his criticisms of the views of Pope John XXII on poverty.
21 Maier 1955 is the seminal discussion of Ockham’s views on these issues.
22 See §2.3.1. Whereas Suárez follows Scotus in claiming that God can miraculously create matter

on its own, however, Ockham at times suggests that it is impossible for prime matter to exist apart
from any form. Nonetheless, Ockham also seems to be committed to the possibility of this sort of ex-
istence, as indicated in Adams 1987: 645–​46.
23 Suárez’s anti-​Thomistic view can be found in DM V.6.5, I.182ab. Both Suárez and Ockham reject

the view of Scotus that the form requires a certain “haecceity” that particularizes its general features.
For the rejection of the Scotistic position in Suárez, see DM V.2.8–​12, I.150a–​52a.
 Quantity, Integral Parts, and Boundaries 73

quantity cannot be a principle of individuation in a material substance, since

this accident itself

supposes matter as a subject, thus supposes the individual entity of it, which
is through itself [per seipsam] an entity distinct from other similar entities;
therefore distinct quantities suppose distinct subjects in which they are re-
ceived, and distinct qualitative parts [suppose] parts of subjects also dis-
tinct in being [entitative distinctas]. (DM V.3.14, I.167a)24

As in Ockham, then, so in Suárez both material substances and their integral

parts must be individuated intrinsically apart from any accidents, and there-
fore cannot be individuated by something like Aquinas’s dimensive quantity.
Earlier I flagged Ockham’s argument that if quantity were an absolute acci-
dent, then God should be able to remove it while keeping the spatial relations
of the parts of a material substance intact. My best spin on this argument was
that the possibility that God create the integral parts of a material substance
in different locations without infusing it with quantity shows that the acci-
dent of quantity does no work. As I have indicated, Suárez in fact concedes
the possibility that serves as the premise of this Ockhamist argument. Here is
the concession:

If, therefore, quantity is taken away, while the substance is conserved, and
no local motion occurs in the substance, the substance will remain with
the same substantial presence, and with the same distance or nearness to
the center and the poles of the world; and so the whole will remain present
in the same space, and its parts in the same parts of space. (DM XL.2.21,
II.538a)

Again, the question the Ockhamist argument raises is why something more
is needed than material substance, its parts, and their spatial relations.
There would be a need for quantity as an extrinsic principle if—​as Aquinas
believed—​a material substance could not have spatially distinct integral parts
intrinsically, simply by virtue of the union in it of substantial form and prime
matter. However, Suárez sides with Ockham in rejecting this position, and so
allows that a material substance has its parts intrinsically, and that those parts

24 On Suárez’s account of individuation in general, and of material substance in particular, see

Gracia 1994.
74 The Metaphysics of the Material World

could bear spatial relations to each other even in the absence of accidental
quantity. So Ockham’s question remains pressing: What does this accident re-
ally add that is not already provided by material substance, its parts, and their
spatial relations?
What seems to create difficulties for Suárez here is his acceptance of the
claim in Ockham that if God eliminated quantity, the integral parts of a ma-
terial substance could retain their different locations in space. However,
when he similarly allows that the parts of a material substance without quan-
tity “could be conserved in distinct locations,” Suárez significantly adds the
following remark:

But all these things do not suffice for a substance to be a quantity, unless
it has the bulk [molem] on account of which it resists [repugnat] other
bodies in the same location, and also has its parts naturally repel [pellunt
naturaliter] each other from the same space. This is what substance, de-
prived of quantity, would not have. For it could be penetrated by other
bodies in the same location. . . . (DM XL.2.21, II.538a)

What quantity adds to the mere location of a material substance in a place,

then, is the impenetrability of its parts, that is, its “resistance” to other
parts occupying that same place. Without such resistance, there would be
nothing to prevent more than one part from occupying the same place at the
same time.
In effect, then, Suárez holds contrary to both Aquinas and Ockham that
there are two sets of integral parts to consider in the case of material sub-
stance: those of the material substance itself, which do not include impene-
trability, and those of quantity, which do include this feature.25 For Aquinas
and Ockham, there is only one set of parts that include both extension and
impenetrability, with the difference consisting in whether these belong to a
material substance in virtue of an accidental quantity (Aquinas) or rather in-
trinsic features of the substance (Ockham). But the initial picture suggested
in Suárez is that the impenetrable parts of quantity map onto parts of ma-
terial substance that by themselves are capable only of extension. Indeed,
Suárez notes that “distinct quantities suppose distinct subjects, in which they
are received, and distinct parts of quantity, also parts of a subject with dis-
tinct entities” (DM V.3.14, I.167a). I have emphasized that Suárez cannot

25 In fact, Suárez ultimately posits four different kinds of material integral parts; see Figure 3.1.
 Quantity, Integral Parts, and Boundaries 75

speak of modes as inhering in the res they modify.26 But he seems to conceive
of the parts of quantity as inhering in the parts of material substance as their
subject.27
Suárez insists on the distinction between the impenetrable parts of quan-
tity and the merely extended parts of material substance in order to allow for
the possibility that bodily parts penetrate each other by occupying the same
place. This is a distinction that Aquinas and Ockham do not seem to have the
resources to permit, and we will see in the next chapter that Descartes rules
out the possibility of this sort of co-​location.28 However, in the preceding
passage Suárez offers one somewhat esoteric reason to think that co-​location
is a real possibility. He notes there that without quantity the parts of a mate-
rial substance “could be penetrated by other bodies in the same location, just
as much as an angelic substance could.” To the objection that a quantity-​less
material substance is not intelligible since it would not differ from an angelic
substance, Suárez responds that a difference remains insofar as a material
substance would still “be composed of parts, not just essential parts but in-
tegral ones, on account of which it is fit, and its nature calls, for the corpo-
real bulk of quantity. Angelic substance, on the other hand, is indivisible, and
not fit for quantity” (DM XL.2.21, II.538ab). Here Suárez is relying on his
Ockhamist position that the individuation of the integral parts of material
substance is intrinsic; even apart from quantity, then, such a substance has a
mereological complexity that an angelic substance does not possess.29
Nevertheless, there are for Suárez more mundane instances of co-​location.
Thus, he holds that sensible qualities, no less than material substances, are
composed of integral parts. But on Suárez’s version of the Thomistic view, the
parts of these qualities are co-​located with—​indeed, inhere in—​the impen-
etrable parts of the quantity of those substances.30 The different parts of the
whiteness of a wall, for instance, are co-​located with the parts of the quan-
tity of the wall itself: left-​side parts of whiteness with corresponding left-​side

26 See §2.3.3.
27 With respect to both modes and quantitative parts Suárez differs from Descartes, who explicitly
distinguishes parts from inhering modes; see §4.3.1, after note 70.
28 See §4.2.
29 Suárez’s view of the nature of material substance devoid of quantity is subtly different from

a Thomistic alternative found in the work of the Conimbricenses. According to the latter, such a
substance has a mereological complexity, but nonetheless its parts cannot be external to each other
(partes extra partes) if quantity does not inhere in them. Suárez simply rejects the assumption here,
found also in Aquinas, that the extension of parts requires the impenetrability that derives externally
from quantity. I owe this point to the discussion in Anfray 2014: 49.
30 See this point, in connection with the co-​location of the qualities of the Eucharistic elements

with the impenetrable quantity of those elements, in DM XL.2.10, II.531ab.

76 The Metaphysics of the Material World

parts of this quantity, right-​side parts of whiteness with corresponding right-​

side parts of the quantity.
It is this point concerning the derivative nature of the impenetrability of
non-​quantitative parts that Suárez takes to provide the strongest philosoph-
ical argument against a nominalist account of quantity.31 For the case of co-​
location reveals that there is a sort of extension of parts that does not involve
the additional feature of impenetrability. It is to explain this additional fea-
ture that Suárez invokes the accident of quantity.32
To be sure, Suárez suggests on behalf of a nominalist such as Ockham that
the extension of the parts of a material substance could be special insofar as
it intrinsically involves impenetrability, something that the extension of the
parts of its sensible qualities lacks (DM XL.2.13, II.536a).33 However, Suárez
also indicates that there is a decisive argument against such a position that
appeals to—​recall again Bayle—​the doctrine of the Eucharist.34 Once the
substance of the Eucharistic elements has been eliminated, there seems to be
no basis for the impenetrability that the integral parts of those elements pre-
viously displayed. This sort of feature cannot be grounded in the quantities
of the persisting qualities of the elements, since those quantities do not in-
trinsically possess impenetrability. There is perhaps the possibility that God
miraculously sustain the effects of impenetrability after consecration. But
here Suárez notes—​in a sly application of a version of Ockham’s razor—​that
we should not multiply miracles in this case unless there is explicit warrant
in revelation for doing so (DM XL.2.13, II.536a).35 The best explanation, he
thinks, is that the impenetrability of the Eucharistic elements derives from an
accidental res that is distinct from the substance of the elements, and so one
that God can sustain even when this substance has been eliminated.36

31 As Suárez claims in DM XL.2.17, II.537a.

32 There is an anticipation of Suárez’s co-​location argument in the earlier work of Francis of
Marchia (fl. 1343); see the discussion in Pasnau 2011: 308–​12. As Pasnau indicates, however, this
work could not have been a source for Suárez since it was quickly forgotten until rediscovered rela-
tively recently.
33 For a similar response on Ockham’s behalf, see Adams 1987: II.177–​78.
34 See DM XL.2.8, II.534b.
35 Here I am drawing on the version of the razor in Ockham according to which “plurality should

not be posited unless we are convinced by reason or experience or an infallible authority” (cited in
Adams 1987: I.157).
36 Suárez accepts Aquinas’s view that the sensible qualities of the Eucharistic elements continue

to inhere in their quantity after consecration. However, Suárez also indicates that the qualities have
their own integral parts intrinsically, and I think that he would allow for the possibility that God
could conserve those parts at different locations even if he did not conserve the qualities as inhering
in quantity. It seems that Aquinas could not allow for this same possibility, given his view that quali-
ties can be spatially distributed only in virtue of inhering in quantity.
 Quantity, Integral Parts, and Boundaries 77

As I have indicated, Suárez follows Aquinas in holding that qualities in-

here in quantity. Whereas Aquinas takes quantity to inhere directly in ma-
terial substance, however, Suárez inherits from Averroes the view that prime
matter serves as the immediate “subject of inhesion” (subjectum inhæsionis)
for quantity (DM XIV.3.36, I.483b–​84a). In line with Ockham, Suárez
emphasizes against Aquinas that parts of quantity require intrinsically indi-
viduated parts of matter as subjects of inhesion. But now it is clear that he
requires as well that prime matter have its own intrinsically individuated
parts, in which the parts of quantity inhere. These parts serve, in turn, as the
material cause of the parts of material substance.
Suárez therefore suggests the following structural ordering of integral parts
(see Figure 3.1). (1) Qualitative parts inhere in quantitative parts, with the
former thereby inheriting the impenetrability of the latter. (2) Quantitative

(1) IP of Quality (with mode of inherence)

Add qualitative aspect to

Inheres in

(2) IP of Quantity(with mode of inherence)

Adds impenetrability to

Inheres in

(3) IP of Prime Matter

Immediate subject of Quant-IP + Qual–IP

Material cause of
(4) IP of Material Substance (with mode of union)
Ultimate subject of other IPs

Figure 3.1 Suárez on integral parts.

78 The Metaphysics of the Material World

parts inhere in parts of prime matter, with the former thereby contributing
impenetrability to the latter. (3) Parts of prime matter are material causes of
the parts of material substance, the latter of which require a substantial mode
of union.37
In allowing that quantitative parts inhere directly in the parts of prime
matter at stage (2), Suárez has a way of responding to one of the arguments for
substantial form pluralism, a view we considered in the previous chapter.38
This argument starts from the assumption that the death of a body does not
bring about the destruction of its quantity. But since quantity, as an accident,
cannot inhere in different substantial subjects, there must be a single such
subject that persists through death. Insofar as this substantial subject is a
composite of substantial form and prime matter, there must be some such
composite present both before and after death. The form of this persisting
composite cannot be that which enlivens the body, such as the sensory or ra-
tional soul, since that is no longer united to the body after death. According
to the pluralist, however, the same “form of corporeality” can be said to be
present in both the living and the dead body. In this way the persistence of
the quantity can be saved. Yet it is open to Suárez to reject the premise that
the persisting subject must be a form-​matter composite. His alternative view
is in fact that prime matter itself is the—​albeit incomplete—​substantial sub-
ject for quantity. Since according to Aristotelian orthodoxy (though perhaps
not Aristotle’s own view)39 such matter remains the same through all sub-
stantial change, so too does the quantity that inheres in it.
I have claimed that Suárez goes beyond both Aquinas and Ockham in
holding that quantity has its own parts that inhere in parts of prime matter
and, ultimately, in parts of material substance. The difference from Ockham
is clear insofar as he denies that there is any quantitative res that inheres,
much less parts of that res. The difference from Aquinas is perhaps less clear
insofar as he allows that quantity intrinsically individuates, and even that it
has parts of its own in the miraculous case of the Eucharist. Nonetheless, to
my knowledge he does not allow that quantity has parts that inhere in a ma-
terial substance. Rather, it seems that on his view it is only material substance
that has spatially distributed parts in virtue of the fact that quantity inheres

37 For Suárez’s endorsement of the Thomistic view that after consecration quantity “is the subject

of the other remaining accidents,” see DM XL.2.10, II.535a. For his claim that the parts of quantity
“communicate” their power of exclusively occupying a place to the parts of matter by “adhering” to
them; see DM XL.4.30, II.551a.
38 See the discussion in §2.3.1, before note 77.
39 See §1.2.2, after note 35.
 Quantity, Integral Parts, and Boundaries 79

in it. But in suggesting that quantity has parts of its own even in the natural
case, Suárez can be seen as increasing its independence from prime matter
and substantial form. There is a further step here—​beyond the one we ear-
lier discerned in Aquinas—​toward a Cartesian conception of quantity. To be
sure, there is no evidence that Descartes himself was aware of the details of
Suárez’s account of quantity.40 Thus, there is no claim here of actual influ-
ence. The point is rather the conceptual one that, in hindsight, we can under-
stand Suárez’s account of quantity to have special importance insofar as it is
more friendly to Descartes than the medieval accounts we have canvassed.
As we have seen, Suárez places particular emphasis on the special connec-
tion between quantity and impenetrability. But he further suggests that this
impenetrability derives from the exercise of a special sort of force or power.
Thus, Suárez holds that something affected by quantity has “by its power” (ex
vi illius) a special sort of “extension of parts ordered to place” (extensionem
partium in ordine ad locum) (DM XL.4.15, II.547a).41 In a previously cited
passage, he takes this “ordination to a place” to involve the possession of a
“bulk” (molem) by which parts “naturally repel [pellunt naturaliter] each
other from the same space” (DM XL.2.21, II.538a). To be actually quantified
a part requires not only the categorical property of being located at a place,
but also the dispositional property of having a power to expel other quanti-
fied parts from that place.42
It must be admitted that this explication of quantity in terms of a repul-
sive power is somewhat difficult to reconcile with Suárez’s emphasis on the
passivity of this accident. There is his view that since quantity “follows upon
matter,” it also “imitates matter’s nature, which is to receive and not to act.”
The passivity of quantity is revealed particularly by the fact that “it is not the
case that a quantity can of itself be produced de novo,” and indeed it cannot
even be the case that “a quantity that did not exist beforehand now begins
to exist through the actions of natural agents” (DM XVIII.4.3, I.624b). But
the suggestion here that quantity cannot itself act raises the question of
whether Suárez is even entitled to appeal to the repulsive power of quantity
in explaining impenetrability.

40 The same goes for Suárez’s specific account of bodily surfaces, which he considers in the

Disputatio devoted to continuous quantity; on this account, see §3.3.2.

41 DM XL.4.16, II.547b. Suárez adds the precision that quantity requires not the actual repulsion of

other bodies, but merely the presence of this ability “in aptitude” (aptitudine). I emphasize the impor-
tance of this precision in §4.2.2, after note 61.
42 I owe this way of expressing the point to Jean-​Pascal Anfray.
80 The Metaphysics of the Material World

However, there are some technical details of Suárez’s position that

might serve to mitigate this problem. The passivity of quantity is linked
to the fact that it cannot produce new quantitative parts. That is to say,
it cannot be an efficient cause that produces some res distinct from it-
self. Yet Suárez distinguishes this sort of efficient causality from a “natural
resulting” (resultantia naturalis). Whereas the former is an “extrinsic” ac-
tion (extrinseca) that presupposes that the agent “has already been consti-
tuted in its complete and natural state,” the latter is “wholly intrinsic (omnino
intrinseca) and in a certain sense has to do with the completed production of
a thing, since it tends toward constituting the thing in the connatural state
that is per se owed to it by the power of its generation” (DM XVIII.3.14,
I.619b). Even when emphasizing the passivity of quantity, Suárez allows that
it can have some effects that “come to exist through natural resulting rather
than through the proper efficient causality that we are talking about” (DM
XVIII.4.3, I.624b). So—​perhaps—​the expulsive power of quantity could be
seen as a kind of natural resulting, though to my knowledge Suárez does not
himself offer any detailed account of the resulting of this power.43
Even so, we do still have the intriguing suggestion in Suárez that quan-
tity involves the addition to mere extension of an extrinsic repulsive power
that accounts for impenetrability. As we will discover in the next chapter, it
is this suggestion that will serve in the end to distinguish his understanding
of impenetrable quantity from the understanding that we can derive from
Descartes’s own brief and somewhat cryptic remarks on this topic.44

3.2. Mereology and Integral Parts

3.2.1. Medieval Mereology

Medieval treatments of mereological issues—​that is, those which concern the

nature of parts and the wholes they compose—​owe much to the discussion

43 In the passage just cited, Suárez does provide as an example of natural resulting from quantity

the fact that “the boundaries of quantity . . . in some cases result from the division of a continuum”
(DM XVIII.4.3, I.624b). Suárez has in mind here the production of new terminating “indivisibles”—​
that is, points, lines, or surfaces—​from the separation of continuous parts. For Suárez’s (somewhat
problematic) view of this sort of production, see the discussion in §3.3.2. Also potentially relevant
here is Suárez’s rather complex discussion of the “power of resisting” (vis resistendi) in DM XLIII.1.7–​
15, II.635a–​37b, which, however, does not mention the specific case of impenetrability.
44 See §4.2.2.
 Quantity, Integral Parts, and Boundaries 81

in the De divisione of Boethius.45 Particularly influential is Boethius’s distinc-

tion among different kinds of relation between a whole and its parts:

For we use the term “whole” [totum] in more than one sense: the “whole”
is that which is continuous, e.g., body, line, or anything of that sort. We
speak also of a whole that is not continuous, e.g., a “whole” flock, popu-
lation, or army. We speak also of a “whole” that is universal, e.g., man or
horse, for these wholes pertaining to their respective parts [partium], i.e.,
men or horses, which also explains why we call this or that man particular
[particularem]. And then there is “whole” in the sense of what consists of
powers [virtutibus] of some kind, e.g., in soul one potency [potentiam] is of
understanding, another of sensing, another of imparting growth. (887d–​
888a, Boethius 1998: 38/​39)

Thus, we have the following different kinds of wholes: continuous wholes

(body or line), discontinuous wholes (flock or population), universal wholes
(man or horse), and potential wholes (soul).
Our focus here is on the distinction in Boethius between continuous and
discontinuous wholes. This maps roughly onto Aristotle’s distinction in the
Categories between continuous and discrete quantities (Cat VI, 4b20–​37;
CW I.8–​9).46 According to Aristotle, continuous quantities have parts that
join at a “common boundary,” whereas the parts of discrete quantities have
no such boundaries. Thus, whereas the integral parts of a continuous body do
not have their own boundaries that serve to separate them from other such
parts, the integral parts of a discontinuous flock have such distinguishing
boundaries, and so are actually marked out as separate.
In order to distinguish them from universal or potential wholes, let us call
integral wholes those composed of spatially related integral parts that are ei-
ther continuous (when the whole is continuous) or discrete (when the whole
is discontinuous). The relation of integral wholes to their integral parts must
also be distinguished from the relation of a material substance to its essential

45 As indicated in Normore 2006: 738–​39; and Arlig 2015.

46 “Roughly”: for Aristotle the paradigmatic instances of discrete quantities are not flocks and
populations, as in Boethius, but rather numbers and syllables. Moreover, whereas Boethius seems to
have in mind wholes with spatial parts (body or flock), Aristotle takes quantity to include wholes—​
such as temporal wholes—​that are not composed of parts that have spatial position. Nonetheless,
I think we can understand Boethius’s distinction between continuous and discontinuous wholes in
terms of Aristotle’s criterion for distinguishing spatial quantities that are continuous from those that
are discrete.
82 The Metaphysics of the Material World

parts, namely, its prime matter and substantial form.47 This distinction also
has a source in Boethius, who claims that “a statue consists in one sense of its
parts, in another [aliter] of matter and form, i.e. of bronze and a shape” (888b,
Boethius 1998: 40/​41). There are two differences between essential and in-
tegral parts to note here. The first is that the integral parts of the statue bear
external spatial relations to each other (in scholastic terms, they are partes
extra partes) that matter and form do not; the latter are rather co-​present in
the whole statue. The second, and related, difference is that the integral parts
of the statue are physically separable, as when the head is separated from the
rest of the statue, whereas one cannot in the same way separate the form of
the statue from its matter.
There is a question about the precise status of the integral parts of a ma-
terial substance. We have seen the claim in Aristotle—​in a passage from
Metaphysics Zeta quoted in ­chapter 1—​that a substance cannot consist of
substances that are “present in it actually.” On one reading, the position here is
that the integral parts of a substance are themselves only potentially substan-
tial when present in that substance. It is only when they are separated from
the substance that at least some such parts can become actual substances.48
Let us call this view of integral parts possibilism.49
Ockham provides an alternative reading of Aristotle’s claim when he
distinguishes two senses in which an integral part can be said to have an
actual existence: either by being actually divided from other parts, or by
having “a true and real existence outside of the soul” (William Ockham
1967–​86: VI.588).50 As he understands the passage from the Metaphysics, the
view there is merely the integral parts do not exist as actually divided insofar
as they constitute a whole. But so read, such a claim leaves open the pos-
sibility that these parts have “a true and real existence outside of the soul”
that is intrinsic to them and that serves to distinguish them as distinct res.
Indeed, Ockham insists that all integral parts have this sort of existence even
before they are actually separated through division. Let us call actualism the

47 For discussion of the notion of essential parts, see §2.3.1.

48 “At least some such parts”: a complication for the possibilist position derives from Aristotle’s
suggestion in the Metaphysics that certain functional parts, such as a hand, are only homonymously
the same when severed from the body (Met VII, 1035b23–​25; CW II.1635). Though these parts could
be said to be potential substances in the sense that they are not actual, they cannot be said to be po-
tential substances in the sense that they can become actual substances through separation. But there
are other parts of an organism—​think, for instance, of strands of hair or skin flakes—​that could be
said to be potential substances in the latter sense.
49 I return in §3.2.2 to a form of this possibilist view in the work of Fonseca.
50 I am drawing here on the discussion in Pasnau 2011: 611–​13.
 Quantity, Integral Parts, and Boundaries 83

position that the integral parts that compose an integral whole are actual res
distinct from each other and from that whole.
Ockham is committed to the view that the integral parts of a material sub-
stance are themselves really distinct substantial res. But there is a further as-
pect of his version of actualism that will be relevant when we move on to
Suárez and then to Descartes and Spinoza. In the previous chapter I noted
the “reductionist” claim in Ockham that a material substance is not distinct
in reality from its essential parts taken together.51 There also is a version of
such a claim with respect to the relation of an integral whole to the integral
parts that compose it. In effect, Ockham takes such wholes to be nothing
over and above the sum of their parts. For instance, a continuous extended
whole, such as the matter of wood, is nothing other than all of the parts of
that matter, taken together. Moreover, the properties of the piece of wood
as an integral whole are entirely derivative from the properties of its inte-
gral parts. Thus, there is here what we could call a bottom-​up mereology of
integral wholes, according to which both the actuality and the properties of
such wholes depend on the actuality and properties of its integral parts.52
One consequence is that integral parts are ontologically prior to the integral
wholes they compose.
There is the possibility of an alternative top-​down mereology, according to
which integral wholes are ontologically prior to the integral parts that com-
pose them. Indeed, Aquinas suggests something very much like this sort of
mereology in the case of the relation of a material substance to its parts. Thus,
he notes that existence can be said in two ways:

In one way, as to that which properly and truly has existence or exists, and
in this way it is attributed only to substance that exists per se. . . . All those
other things, on the other hand, that do not exist per se, but are in another
and with another—​whether they are accidents or substantial forms or any
sort of parts—​do not have existence in such a way that they truly exist, but
existence is attributed to them in another way—​that is, that by which some-
thing is—​just as whiteness is said to be not because it subsists in itself, but
because by it something has existence-​as-​white [esse album].53

51 See §2.3.2, after note 83.

52 I am indebted here to the discussion in Normore 2006: 747–​54. Cf. the discussion in Cross 1999,
which is sympathetic to the anti-​reductionist alternative to Ockham’s view in Scotus.
53 Quodlibet IX.2.2c; my emphasis. I use the translation provided in Pasnau 2011: 624.
84 The Metaphysics of the Material World

Thus, the existence of the parts of a whole that exists per se, such as a material
substance, is entirely derivative upon the existence of that whole, in such a
way that only the whole can be said to exist “properly and truly.”
The claim here is restricted to the parts of something that itself exists per
se. However, there is some basis in Aristotle for extending the claim to purely
quantitative parts. Thus, in the passage from Metaphysics Zeta concerning
the potential existence of parts, Aristotle offers as an example the fact that the
two halves of a line are only potentially two insofar as division is required to
actualize the halves (Met VII.13, 1039a3–​11; CW II.1640). In later Thomism
we find a similar view concerning the integral parts of continuous quantita-
tive wholes. For instance, the Thomist Soto54 insists that even though one can
say that a continuous whole has two halves, it does not follow that “there are
two beings [entia]. For those parts do not have distinct unities; rather those
two parts are only one thing [unum].” The contrast here is with a discrete
quantitative whole, which is composed of parts that “are actually divided,”
and thus that do count as “distinct unities” with their own existence.55 The
indication in Soto, then, is that the integral parts of a continuous quantitative
whole are not sufficiently unified to be capable of a “proper and true” exist-
ence. It is only when separated from the whole that such parts can be said to
exist in this way.56
Soto himself indicates that one can apply a bottom-​up mereology to dis-
crete quantitative wholes. That is to say, the existence and nature of such
wholes are wholly dependent on the existence and nature of the discrete in-
tegral parts that compose them. With this result an Ockhamist actualist can
agree. The differences concern whether such a mereology can apply to con-
tinuous wholes as well. Whereas the Thomistic view in Soto is that the inte-
gral parts of such wholes no more have their own independent existence than
do essential or integral parts of substantial wholes, the upshot of Ockhamist
actualism is that these parts do in fact have an existence that is independent
of, and in fact grounds, the existence of the wholes they compose.
We will discover that Suárez endorses a kind of actualist account of inte-
gral parts, as well as a reductionist account of integral wholes. Such features
of his system seem to place him firmly in the Ockhamist camp. It would

54 Who we encountered in the previous chapter; see the beginning of §2.2.2.

55 Citing here the passage as translated in Pasnau 2011: 624.
56 Here I follow Pasnau’s view that Soto is not denying that the integral quantitative parts exist, but

rather asserting—​in line with Aquinas’s own view of parts of substances—​that they have a merely de-
rivative existence; see Pasnau 2011: 625–​26.
 Quantity, Integral Parts, and Boundaries 85

therefore be natural to expect that he accept a kind of bottom-​up mereology

that conceives of integral wholes entirely in terms of the integral parts that
compose them. As it turns out, however, the issue is not so straightforward.

3.2.2. Suárez on Integral Parts and Wholes

We know that in his commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics, Suárez’s con-

temporary, Fonseca, posited two kinds of intermediate distinctions ex natura
rei between real and rational distinctions, namely, formal and (tripartite)
modal distinctions.57 However, to these he added a third that pertains to in-
tegral parts of some homogenous whole (partes integrantes eiusdem totius
homogenei). No doubt inspired by Aristotle’s own remarks (which nonethe-
less are not in fact cited), Fonseca calls this a “potential distinction” (distinctio
potentialis). He explains that the integral parts that compose the ocean or
the air, for instance, are neither “entities in act [actu entia], nor modes of
entities [modi entium], but parts in act [partes in actu], so to speak” (Pedro
da Fonseca 1964: II.401). This same result does not apply to heterogeneous
integral parts, which Fonseca takes to be really and not merely potentially
distinct.
Nonetheless, Fonseca confuses matters by also offering the distinction
among homogeneous integral parts as an example of a real distinction.58
Suárez exploits this confusion in arguing that the potential distinction can
in fact be reduced to a real distinction. He admits that when continuous inte-
gral parts are united, “they are sometimes said to be actually distinct as parts
[partes], but potentially as beings [entia], that is, as wholes [tota] of a sort,
because they are in potency to become such” (DM VII.1.23, I.258b). Yet he
insists that even when they are united the continuous integral parts remain
distinct “in act” and not merely “in potency,” in the same way that prime
matter and substantial form remain distinct “in act” when they are substan-
tially united. Indeed, for Suárez there is an even greater reason to apply the
real distinction to continuous integral parts than there is to apply it to form
and matter. Whereas the latter remain incomplete beings even in separation,
insofar as they have an essential aptitude for union, the former “do not have

57 See §2.2.2.
58 Thus, Fonseca defines a distinctio realis as one in which something is distinguished from another
“as one res from another, or [aut] as a real integral part of a homogenous whole from another integral
part,” where the “or” is clearly exclusive (Pedro da Fonseca 1964: II.395).
86 The Metaphysics of the Material World

the character of part or of incomplete being unless they are united” since
when they are separated “each one begins to be a complete and whole entity”
that is “not of itself ordained to the composition of another thing” (I.258b).
Thus, having the potential to exist as something with a “complete and whole
entity” is sufficient (though not necessary, as shown by the example of matter
and form) for being a distinct res.
Suárez’s actualism includes his rejection of Fonseca’s view that a special
sort of potential distinction applies to integral parts of a homogeneous whole.
In line with this position, Suárez also disputes the suggestion in Fonseca that
there is a difference in the metaphysical status of homogeneous and hetero-
geneous integral parts. Though he grants that the distinction among heter-
ogeneous parts is perhaps easier to discern, Suárez stresses that when they
are united they “are still considered incomplete and partial beings” insofar
as they are, “as it were, ordained to the composition of something else” (DM
VII.23, I.258b). Homogeneous and heterogeneous parts alike are parts
insofar as they are united, but are also wholes insofar as they can exist in
separation.59
In the portion of the Disputationes in which he defends the reductionist
claim that a material substance is identical to its essential parts “taken to-
gether and really united,”60 Suárez also endorses a form of reductionism
that applies equally to homogeneous and heterogeneous wholes. Here he
takes issue with the position—​which he attributes to the fourteenth-​century
scholastic Johannes of Naples—​that homogenous wholes differ from heter-
ogeneous wholes insofar as the former cannot be distinguished from their
integral parts, whereas the latter can be so distinguished (DM XXXVI.3.13,
II.490a). Suárez argues that both such wholes can be identified with their
integral parts when these are “taken together and really united.” Thus, he
claims that

whatever whole, however it is, requires a proportionate union of parts,

and is nothing beyond those parts taken together and so conjoined.
From whence a pile of wood that must be considered as entirely one
with its parts requires, in addition to individual pieces of wood and their
multitude, their proximity. For if they were in distant places, they would
not compose a pile. And thus a pile is nothing other than all the pieces of

59 This result in Suárez will turn out to be highly relevant to Spinoza’s account of the mereology of

the material world; see §7.2.1.

60 See §2.3.2.
 Quantity, Integral Parts, and Boundaries 87

wood taken together and constituted in such a place with such a prox-
imity. But a house, because it requires a greater union and composition
of parts (for beyond proximity it requires an order and disposition and
artificial conjunction), possesses a greater unity, but not a greater iden-
tity with or distinction from all its parts taken together and their union.
(DM XXXVI.1.13, II.490a)

Suárez indicates that all wholes—​whether heterogeneous or homogeneous,

whether substantial or accidental—​are nothing beyond their integral parts
as united in the appropriate manner. It is this last clause that rules out the
contemporary principle that any set of integral parts, however scattered or
disaggregated, forms a whole that is identical to the “mereological fusion”
of those parts.61 Just as a substantial whole requires a substantial mode that
unifies it, so any other collection of integral parts requires some mode of
union by which the collection can be considered as one thing.
Suárez notes that in the case of the woodpile, the mode of union is mere
proximity. Though in his official view items in the category of position (situs)
are merely extrinsic denominations, he holds that they are grounded in items
in the category of place (ubi), which are modes intrinsic to what exists in a
place.62 The greater mode of union present in the case of the house, which
requires order, disposition, and artificial conjunction in addition to prox-
imity, will likewise be grounded in intrinsic modes of the integral parts of
the house.
The integral parts of woodpiles or houses can exist on their own as com-
plete beings. But this is not always the case with integral parts. Suárez
indicates as much when he observes—​in the course of arguing for the equiv-
alence of homogeneous and heterogeneous wholes—​that some parts remain
incomplete even when separated, “as happens when plants have been di-
vided or animals dismembered.” In order to remain a functioning item, the
separated part must still be united to a substantial form, and so remain some-
thing that is “ordained to the composition of something else” (DM VII.1.23,
I.258b–​259a). In this respect, such integral parts are similar to the essential
parts of a material substance, which remain incomplete even in separation
insofar as they retain an aptitude for union.63 In contrast, the integral parts of
61 For a defense of this principle, see, for instance, Lewis 1991: 74.
62 For the claim that situs is distinct only in reason from ubi, see DM LII.1.9, II.1009ab. For the
claim that ubi is itself an “intrinsic mode” (modum intrinsicam), see DM LI.1.14, II.976a.
63 In the background here, of course, is Aristotle’s claim in the Metaphysics concerning the severed

hand cited in note 48.

88 The Metaphysics of the Material World

woodpiles or houses are not essentially ordained to the composition of some-

thing else, and so are able to exist in separation as complete beings. It seems
clear, then, that all integral parts cannot be equal for Suárez.
Moreover, Suárez’s argument for the fundamental similarity of ho-
mogeneous and heterogeneous wholes must be considered together
with his suggestion in other portions of the Disputationes that homoge-
neous wholes have a distinctive status. In particular, in his discussion in
Disputatio IV of the “transcendental” property of unity, he notes that con-
tinuous quantity is “in its kind properly and of itself one” (in suo genere
proprie et per se una), just as are continuous and homogeneous material
substances such as fire and air (DM VI.3.9, I.128a). Of course, Suárez
does allow that there are certain heterogeneous collections of integral
parts that possess this same kind of a unity, such as a material substance
that constitutes an ens per se unum in virtue of its substantial form (DM
IV.3.11, I.428b–​429a). However, when heterogeneous integral parts are
united neither by continuity nor by a true “physical union,” but only by
“some order” that can be more or less, the collection is “a being entirely
by aggregation” (ens omnino per aggregationem) that has only an acci-
dental unity (DM IV.3.14, I.130a). One thinks here again of woodpiles and
houses, the integral parts of which are merely accidentally related to each
other. Suárez’s conclusion—​which we might anticipate—​is that the acci-
dental unity of collections of integral parts such as these is related to the
per se unity of the integral parts of continuous quantity and of material
substance only by analogy (DM IV.5.2, 133ab).
Given his argument against Fonseca, it is somewhat disconcerting that
Suárez claims that the parts of continuous quantity “are not said to be simply
many in act but in potency” (esse simpliciter plura in actu sed in potentia),
citing in support Aristotle’s views in the Metaphysics (DM IV.3.9, I.428a).
However, I take the indication here to be merely that the parts, when united,
are incomplete or partial beings, but nonetheless also really distinct. Though
Suárez does not himself explicitly endorse it, I think we can offer on his be-
half the view that accidental unities such as woodpiles and houses have a dis-
tinctive ontological status. Though these parts are of course related through
some mode of union, they are not themselves naturally ordained to the
composition of something else. For this reason it seems to me that Suárez
could say—​what he in fact does not in his argument against the potential
distinction—​that integral parts that are accidentally united remain complete
beings even when united.
 Quantity, Integral Parts, and Boundaries 89

If what I have said is correct, we have a basis in Suárez for a distinction

between two different kinds of integral wholes: per se unities composed of
(at least some) integral parts that are incomplete beings, on the one hand,
and per accidens unities composed of integral parts that are complete beings,
on the other. It would seem that the same sort of mereology does not apply
to these two kinds. I have distinguished between a bottom-​up mereology,
favored by Ockham, and a top-​down mereology, favored by Aquinas in the
case of material substance and extended by Soto to the case of continuous
quantity. But though a bottom-​up mereology would seem to be suitable for
accidental unities as Suárez conceives them, it does not fit his conception
of per se unities such as continuous quantity and material substances. For
with respect to the latter, the integral parts must be considered to be incom-
plete, when united. As will become clear in remarks that follow, Suárez holds
that the integral parts of a continuous quantitative whole do not have their
own distinct boundaries, and thus are not marked out as wholes. In contrast,
the integral parts of material substances are incomplete insofar as they are
ordained by a substantial form to serve a certain function for the whole they
compose. However, in both cases the nature of the part must be considered in
relation to the nature of some whole, thus indicating the need for a top-​down
mereology.
It is perhaps a surprising result here that Suárez takes the accident of con-
tinuous quantity to have a per se unity that is akin to the per se unity of a
material substance.64 But more surprises await us in his treatment of the
boundaries that limit either quantitative wholes or the integral parts that
compose them.

3.3. Boundaries as Indivisible Constituents

3.3.1. Medieval Indivisibles

We have considered the actualist view in Suárez that quantity is composed

of integral parts that are really distinct res. It might seem that given his met-
aphysics, the only other real features that we could find in quantity are the

64 Indeed, Suárez claims that the continuous parts of a quality such as whiteness can also exhibit

this sort of per se unity by means of “its partial entities united among themselves by a proper connec-
tion, and by a union of its own kind” (suas entitates partiales inter se unitas proprio vinculo, et unione
sui generis) (DM IV.3.12, I.429a).
90 The Metaphysics of the Material World

modes of the parts. However, it turns out that Suárez takes there to be addi-
tional features of quantity that are reducible neither to the parts composing it
nor to what modifies those parts. These are the spatial “boundaries” (termini)
that contain or limit the parts, which consist of surfaces, lines, and points.
Following tradition, Suárez characterizes these boundaries as “indivisibles”
(indivisibilia). A surface is indivisible in one dimension insofar as it has
length and width but not depth; a line is indivisible in two dimensions in-
sofar as it has length but neither width nor depth; and a point, finally, is abso-
lutely indivisible insofar as it has neither length nor width nor depth. Suárez’s
position is that these indivisibles are not modes of parts but rather res that,
unlike the integral parts of quantity, do not compose quantity itself.
In order to understand this position, it is best to start with the discussion of
continuous quantity in Aristotle’s Physics. In this text Aristotle stipulates that
two parts of a quantity are continuous when “their extremities are one” (Phy
VI.1, 231a21; CW I.390).65 This common extremity is the two-​dimensional
surface that is itself limited by one-​dimensional lines, and those lines by zero-​
dimensional points. Aristotle emphasizes that these indivisibles cannot com-
pose higher dimension continua since they lack extremities in the relevant
dimensions, and so cannot have extremities that are one in those dimensions.
Thus, zero-​dimensional points cannot compose a one-​dimensional line, lines
cannot compose a two-​dimensional surface, and surfaces cannot compose a
three-​dimensional body. Rather, the line must be composed of divisible lines,
the surface of divisible surfaces, and the body of divisible three-​dimensional
parts (Phy VI.1, 321a23–​321b17; CW I.390–​91).66
Though it is clear from what Aristotle says that indivisible boundaries are
not themselves integral parts that compose higher-​dimensional continua,
there is still the question of what precisely their ontological status is. Indeed,
in the Metaphysics Aristotle himself expresses bewilderment on this issue.
On the one hand, he notes that they seem to be even more substantial than
body since “body is bounded by these; and they are thought to be capable of
existing without a body, but a body cannot exist without them” (Met III.5,
1002a6–​7; CW II.1582).67 On the other hand, he observes that they are

65 See also Cat VI, 5a4–​14; CW I.8; and Met XI.12, 1069a5–​8; CW II.1688. Aristotle holds that the

continuous is a species of the contiguous, where two parts are contiguous if their extremities touch.
Contiguity is not continuous in the case where the contiguous parts have their own extremities.
66 For a discussion of Aristotle’s account of continuity in this section of the Physics, see Bostock

2006: ch. 10.

67 But cf. the claim elsewhere in the Metaphysics that lines and surfaces “are not separable

substances, but sections and divisions,” and that “all of these are in other things and none is separable”
(Met XI.2, 1060b14–​18; CW II.1675–​76).
 Quantity, Integral Parts, and Boundaries 91

neither generated nor corrupted over time in the manner of a substance, but
rather are instantaneously produced or destroyed. Thus, when two bodies be-
come continuous, their previously separate boundaries are instantaneously
destroyed and immediately replaced by a common boundary, and when they
separate, their common boundary is instantaneously destroyed and imme-
diately replaced by two new boundaries (1002a30–​1002b6; CW II.1583). In
the end, Aristotle can only conclude that “it baffles us to say what being is and
what the substance of things is” (1002a27–​28; CW II.1582–​83).
Aristotle left it to others to sort out the metaphysics of the indivisibles.
In the later medieval period, discussions of this issue repeatedly cite a par-
ticular argument, dating from after Aristotle, for the real existence of the
indivisibles.68 This argument involves the case of a perfectly spherical body
touching an absolutely plane body. As Ockham, an opponent of the argu-
ment, summarizes it:

I ask whether [the perfect sphere] touches at something divisible, or at

something indivisible. The first cannot be given, because at whichever di-
visible you choose, there will be a curve, and consequently the whole [di-
visible] will not fit the plane, but there will be an intermediate body [corpus
medium] between some part of the curve and that place. If the second is
given, we have what the argument proposes to show. (William Ockham
1967–​86: V.583)

In order to touch the plane at more than one point, the sphere must have
some part of its outer boundary that is linear. However, the boundaries of
the sphere are perfectly curvilinear. The only option, then, is that the sphere
touches the plane at an indivisible point. A similar argument can be extended
to lines and surfaces. Just imagine that a perfect sphere or perfect cylinder
rolls across the plane from the point of contact by means of a continuous mo-
tion. In this way the motion of the sphere traces a line, and the motion of the
cylinder traces a surface.
Even if this argument is understood to establish the real existence of
indivisibilia, there is still the question of the acceptability of Aristotle’s claim
that indivisibles cannot compose three-​dimensional continua. There were

68 The argument can be found in Averroes; see Zoubov 1961: 61–​62. However, the particular ex-

ample of a bronze sphere touching something straight at a point can be found in Aristotle; see On the
Soul I.1, 403a13–​14; CW I.642.
92 The Metaphysics of the Material World

medieval thinkers—​such as Henry of Harclay (1270–​1317) and Walter

Chatton (1285–​1344)—​who insisted contrary to Aristotelian orthodoxy that
higher dimension continua are composed of lower level indivisibles. We can
call this position extreme realism to indicate the radical view that at the most
fundamental level of extension, there are only indivisibles. Indeed, for such
thinkers the sphere argument establishes not only that indivisibilia exist, but
also that, for instance, the continuous line traced by the rolling sphere is com-
posed of indivisible points.69 However, more prevalent during this period
was the view of those—​perhaps Aquinas but certainly later Thomists such
as Cajetan and Soto70—​who accepted the Aristotelian account of composi-
tion but nonetheless posited indivisibles in nature in addition to the divisible
parts that compose continua. We can call this view moderate realism in order
to indicate the result—​in opposition to extreme realism—​that the funda-
mental level of extension includes divisible parts in addition to indivisibilia.71
In contrast to these forms of realism, there was the nominalist position—​
as represented in the work of Ockham, Adam Wodeham (ca. 1298–​1358)
and John Buridan (ca. 1300–​1361)—​that endorses Aristotle’s conclusion
that indivisibles cannot compose continua but that also rejects the view that
there are indivisible boundaries of continua over and above their divisible
constituent parts. There were various nominalist responses to the sphere ar-
gument. Thus, Ockham sometimes takes the hard line that the sphere does
not in fact touch the plane, whereas Wodeham proposes an alternative no-
tion of touching on which the two can be said to touch at a divisible point.72
The common position among the nominalists, however, is that no indivis-
ible point—​and equally no indivisible line or surface—​exists as an “absolute”
being in nature. This position was thought to have some basis in Aristotle

69 There is a discussion of the extreme realist position in Zupko 1993: 159–​62; see also Murdoch

1982b: 571–​78. From an Aristotelian perspective, of course, the position is faulty since points cannot
compose continua insofar as they lack extremities that they can share with other points.
70 Suárez says that this view “seems to be” that of Aquinas and that it “is common in his school,”

citing Cajetan and Soto, among others; see DM XL.5.9, II.553. In this passage he also attributes the
view to Scotus, though Scotus himself understood it in terms of a theory of distinctions different
from that of the Thomists (see §2.2.2).
71 It might be thought that the success of the analysis of continuity offered by Richard Dedekind

(1831–​1916) constitutes the victory of extreme realism over moderate realism, since on this analysis
a continuum can be constructed from sets of points. However, on intuitionist views of mathematics
Dedekind’s construction of continua from sets of more than denumerably many points is unaccept-
able, and even if it is acceptable from a mathematical point of view, it is perhaps questionable whether
any such construction can accurately represent continua in nature. For discussion, see Bell 2013.
72 For a helpful treatment of the dialectic here, with references to the relevant nominalist texts, see

Zupko 1993.
 Quantity, Integral Parts, and Boundaries 93

himself insofar as he distinguished abstracted mathematical quantity from

sensible matter.73
One can understand the differences between nominalism and its main
medieval competitor, Thomistic moderate realism, in terms of the metaphys-
ical theory of distinctions considered in the previous chapter.74 This is the
theory that there is a mutually exclusive and exhaustive division between a
real distinction among non-​identical res, on the one hand, and a rational dis-
tinction among different ways of conceiving one and the same res, on the
other. According to the Thomistic moderate realist, the indivisibles are re-
ally distinct from the higher dimensional objects they limit: point from line,
line from surface, and surface from three-​dimensional body. On one under-
standing of the nominalist position, by contrast, the indivisibles are merely
ways of conceiving three-​dimensional bodily parts, and so are merely ration-
ally distinct from those parts. Thus, for instance, the surface two such parts
share is simply the relation we conceive them to bear to one another when
they are united in a continuum. The surface itself adds no new res to the parts
so united. On one nominalist argument, this conclusion is confirmed by the
fact that were God to take away the surface from the parts, there would be no
change in the dimensions of the parts themselves, since the surface has no
depth. But then the surface provides nothing that cannot be provided by the
parts themselves. Here we see a rejection of a sort of realism that requires that
the indivisibles are distinct in reality from divisible parts.75
As it is with surfaces, so it is with points and lines, which for the nomi-
nalist are merely ways in which we conceive of three-​dimensional bodies.76
When Suárez later entered into the debate over the status of indivisibilia, he
took a traditionalist stance in defending a version of Thomistic moderate re-
alism over this sort of nominalist position. However, as we well know by now,
he also is distinctive insofar as he introduced a modal distinction interme-
diate between the real and rational distinctions. It turns out that this feature

73 See Phy II.2, 193b32–​194a6; CW I.331. However, it is noteworthy that Aristotle says just prior

to this passage that “natural bodies contain surfaces and volume, lines and points, and these are the
subject-​matter for mathematics” (193a23–​25; CW I.331).
74 See §2.2.1.
75 On the version of this nominalist argument in the seventeenth-​ century work of Libertus
Fromondus, see Palmerino 2015: 26–​27.
76 My summary of the nominalist position follows Suárez’s discussion of it in emphasizing its met-

aphysical aspects; see DM XL.5.2–​6, II.551a–​52b. However, there are also semantic considerations
here that, as the label indicates, were particularly important for the nominales themselves. For further
consideration of these aspects of nominalist accounts of the indivisibles, see Murdoch 1981, 1982a,
and 1982b; Stump 1982; McCord Adams 1987: I.201–​13; Goddu 1999; and Spade 1999.
94 The Metaphysics of the Material World

of his system calls into question certain aspects of his own account of the
indivisibles.

3.3.2. Suárez’s Moderate Realism

Suárez discusses the indivisibles in Disputatio XL of his Disputationes, which

is devoted to continuous quantity, a species of the Aristotelian accidental
category of quantity.77 The main contrasting view in this section is that of
the nominalists, though Suárez also mentions other intermediate views that
allow for the reality of some of the indivisibles but not others.78 Suárez him-
self takes the sphere argument to establish beyond doubt that contact at a
point “occurs in some real entity that formally exists in the thing; and yet it
occurs in an indivisible thing; therefore such an indivisible entity exists for-
mally in the thing itself ” (DM XL.5.19, II.556b). To the Ockhamist denial
that there is in fact any contact here, Suárez’s response is dismissive: “This
is incredible in and of itself [per se], for what could impede real contact?”
(DM XL.5.11, II.554a).79 It is simply obvious for Suárez that the sphere must
make initial contact with the plane prior to any compression of parts due to
its descent. And if the point can be admitted, so too can the line and the sur-
face: these also formally exist in something as indivisible entities. Yet what
makes Suárez’s position a version of moderate realism is that it includes an
endorsement of the Aristotelian argument that the indivisibles cannot exist
in continua as constitutive parts. Appealing to Aristotle’s view in book VI of
the Physics, Suárez concludes that indivisibles that “are not parts are how-
ever components in some way [aliquo modo componentia]” (DM XL.5.35,
II.561b).
Suárez indicates that these indivisible “components” are res-​like elements
when he argues that they are “really distinct” from each other and from

77 For a discussion of this disputatio, see Secada 2012.

78 On Suárez’s discussion of the nominalist position, see note 76. This discussion is followed by
a summary of the version of Thomistic moderate realism that Suárez accepts (XL.5.9–​12, II.553–​
54), and then by a discussion of three other intermediate views: (i) the view that only terminating
boundaries are real and not the continuative boundaries found in continua (XL.5.13, II.554–​55),
(ii) the view that only surfaces are real and not the other indivisibles (XL.5.15–​17, II.555–​56), and
(iii) the view that only external surfaces are real and not internal surfaces (XL.5.21, II.557). Suárez’s
basic argument is that these intermediate positions fail to provide adequately principled reasons for
accepting the reality of certain indivisibles but not the others.
79 One might well think this is too dismissive; there is for instance the nominalist suggestion of a

different sense in which one can say there is contact in this case without admitting indivisibles. For
what I take to be a related objection to Suárez, see Zimmerman 1996: 160–​61.
 Quantity, Integral Parts, and Boundaries 95

three-​dimensional parts. Though Suárez’s notion of a real distinction does

not require that really distinct elements can exist in separation, he nonethe-
less accepts as “very probable” the argument that, in the absence of special
countervailing considerations, one has reason to hold that really distinct
items are mutually separable.80 In any event, he is assuming in his discus-
sion of the indivisibles that the sort of real distinction that applies in this
case involves mutual separability. The separability of a particular part of a
line from the indivisible that limits it can be seen from the fact that that same
part can exist either as continuous with or as separated from another part of
a line. But then the same part can possess either “continuative indivisibles”
(indivisibilia continuantia), as Suárez calls them, which are present when the
part is continuous with its adjacent part, or distinct “terminating indivisibles”
(indivisibilia terminantia), in his terms, which are present when the part
exists in separation (DM XL.5.36, II.561b). Suárez admits that a finite part
must have some indivisible limit, whether continuative or terminating. But
his main point here is that it does not have to possess any particular such
limit. Thus, the limit cannot be identified with the part, which would need to
be the case if there were only a distinction of reason between the two.
If the real and rational distinctions were exhaustive, this argument would
perhaps suffice to show that there is a real distinction in this case. However,
once Suárez’s new modal distinction is in place, along with its accompanying
notion of a mode, the fact that a part of a line can exist without a particular
indivisible boundary does not suffice to show that there is a real distinction
between the two. For this fact allows for the claim that the boundary is a mode
of that part. Indeed, in the course of his discussion of the modal distinction,
Suárez himself speaks at times as if indivisible boundaries are modes. Thus,
he notes that a portion of water can be called complete when separated from
other portions of water but incomplete when continuous with them, in which
cases there is “a mode [that] consists solely in diverse union or termination”
(modus solum consistit in diversa unione vel terminatione) (DM VII.1.19,
I.257). The portion of water continuous with an adjacent portion shares a
common uniting or continuative mode with that other portion, whereas in
separation that portion has its own terminating mode.
There might seem to be an obvious problem for Suárez with respect to
the conception of a continuative mode. For on his own view, a mode cannot
modify two really distinct entities. I have noted that Suárez takes modes of

80 See DM VII.2.8, I.263b–​64b. For discussion of the exceptions, see §2.2.1, after note 35.
96 The Metaphysics of the Material World

distinct res to be themselves really distinct.81 However, he also holds that the
different parts of a continuum are really distinct from each other.82 But then
he cannot claim that the same mode modifies two different parts, for in that
case the mode would be identical at the same time to part1 and to the really
distinct part2, and thus would be identical to two things that are really dis-
tinct. Indeed, Suárez himself indicates that a continuative boundary shared
by two parts “cannot be really the same with both parts together, when those
very parts are really distinguished from each other” (DM XL.5.36, II.561).83
Nonetheless, I think Suárez’s emphasis on the fact that the boundary
cannot modify the two parts when they are distinguished from each other
indicates a way around this problem. For as we have seen, he also allows that
the parts can also be considered as a unit insofar as they form a continuous
whole. Though a continuative boundary could not modify two parts when
they are separated, it seems that it could be said to modify the parts when
they are continuous. In schematic terms, this mode can modify the contin-
uous (part1 & part2), which conjunction itself counts as a single res. In con-
trast, the terminative boundaries that the parts have in their separated state
can limit only one of the parts, which equally count as complete beings.
Given this use of this discussion in Disputatio VII, it is perhaps disap-
pointing that Suárez nowhere suggests in Disputatio XL that indivisible
boundaries are modes of what they limit.84 In fact, he says explicitly in the
latter text that a real distinction holds in the case of the indivisibles and what
they limit. When he claims that the indivisibles are “constituents” of a con-
tinuum, then, he means to say that they are distinct res in the same way that
the divisible parts that compose that continuum are distinct res. But why
think that the indivisibles have this status as opposed to the status of being
a modus?
Suárez’s most explicit argument in Disputatio XL against the claim that an
indivisible boundary is only a “mode distinct by the nature of things” (modus

81 See §2.2.2, around Table 2.1.

82 See DM VII.1.23, I.258b. For the claim in Suárez that these parts are really distinct, see §3.2.2.
83 Suárez offers this point in defense of the claim that boundaries are really distinct from the parts

they limit. However, for reasons indicated presently, I do not think that the consideration he offers
precludes the view that a continuative limit is a mode.
84 The disconcerting nature of this fact was first suggested to me by a note in Menn 1995, in which

it is said “it would have been more consistent with [Suárez’s] general program” to explicate surfaces
“as modes of termination and union, as Descartes thinks the Scholastics generally did and as many
of them doubtless did” (195n20). Setting aside the final point about the scholastics, which might be
questionable, given the relative novelty of the Suárezian notion of mode, I think the rest of the claim
is correct. Indeed, my discussion in this section can be understood as a way of further developing
this claim.
 Quantity, Integral Parts, and Boundaries 97

ex natura rei distinctus) emphasizes that such a boundary has a property,

namely, indivisibility, that the part it limits lacks. Thus, there is the absence
of a kind of “proportion” required for the boundary to be a mode that has a
kind of identity with the reality of the part it limits (DM LX.5.38, II.562a).85
However, this argument seems to me to be far from compelling. For the
boundaries at least pertain to quantity in some way, and it might be thought
that this suffices for the proportion on which Suárez is insisting. Moreover,
I have noted that Suárez himself speaks explicitly of “modes of union and
termination,” and it isn’t clear that these modes cannot be conceived to be
indivisible in some respect. Indeed, we will discover that Descartes conceives
of the modes in just this way.
Perhaps most seriously, however, there appear to be good reasons for
Suárez to say that the indivisible boundaries are modes rather than really
distinct res. One is indicated by the passage from the Metaphysics I cited
earlier, in which Aristotle puzzles over the fact that the indivisibles can be
instantaneously produced and destroyed, as opposed to being generated and
corrupted, which are processes that occur over time. In Disputatio XL, Suárez
notes as an objection to his account that “the material indivisibles that arise
anew are created and consequently, when they are destroyed, annihilated”
(DM XL.5.55, II.566b).86 And he in fact grants that the union or separation
of parts involves the creation or annihilation, rather than the generation or
corruption, of indivisible boundaries. This admission allows him to address
some concerns that Roderick Chisholm has raised concerning the status of
boundaries. In particular, Chisholm asks:

If the continuous object is cut in half, then does the one boundary [that
demarcates two adjacent parts] become two boundaries, one thing

85 In DM XL.5.35–​39 of this section (II.561a–​62a), Suárez offers several arguments in favor of the

conclusion that the indivisibles “are really distinguished among themselves and from body” (inter se,
et a corpore realiter distingui). However, most of these arguments show only that the indivisibles are
distinguished in reality from the bodies that they limit, and not necessarily that they are really distinct.
For instance, the claim in paragraph 36 that a limit of one part of a line is really distinct from other
parts of that line (II.561b) is compatible with the claim that it is a mode of the part it limits. I have also
considered how the argument in the same paragraph that the same continuative boundary cannot
be a mode of really distinct parts could nonetheless be reconciled with the claim that this limit is
a mode.
86 Incidentally, this passage provides reason to reject the interpretation of Suárez in Varzi 2013,

according to which the continuative boundary is really the two boundaries of the adjacent parts that
“coincide spatially without overlapping mereologically.” If this were the case, it would seem that sepa-
ration would not require the creation of new boundaries, contrary to what Suárez himself indicates in
the passage.
98 The Metaphysics of the Material World

thus becomes two things? . . . But how can one thing—​even if it is only a
boundary—​become two things? And does this mean that when two things
become continuous, then two things that had been diverse become identical
with each other, two things thus becoming one thing? (Chisholm 1984: 88)

Suárez suggests that when the continuous object is cut, it is the case not that
one thing becomes two, but that a continuative boundary is instantaneously
annihilated and then immediately replaced by two newly created terminating
boundaries. Likewise, when two things become continuous, it is not that
two boundaries become identical; rather, two terminating boundaries are
instantaneously annihilated and immediately replaced by a newly created
continuative boundary. But as Suárez indicates, his own answers to these
questions seem to require that he explain natural changes in terms of de-
cidedly non-​natural instances of the creation and annihilation of res (DM
XL.5.55, II.566b).
Though he admits that the production of indivisibilia is “difficult to ex-
plain” (DM XL.5.56, II.567a), Suárez nonetheless proposes that a natural ex-
planation can be provided in terms of the causal notion of natural resulting,
to which I appealed earlier when considering his understanding of the im-
penetrability of quantity.87 With respect to indivisible boundaries, the pro-
posal is that their instantaneous creation can be explained in terms of the
fact that they naturally result from the parts either in separation (in the case
of the terminating boundaries) or in continuous union (in the case of the
continuative boundaries). We have seen that one difficulty for Suárez’s con-
ception of impenetrable quantity is that he took this accident to inherit the
passivity of the matter in which it directly inheres. Now, however, we have
the difficulty that the passivity of matter itself precludes the appeal to natural
resulting in the explanation of the creation of indivisible boundaries.
With respect to this latter difficulty, Suárez offers the theological example
of withdrawal of the Word from the human body of Christ. In this case, “from
the matter itself results partial subsistence through some intrinsic activity
and reception of its own subsistence” (DM XL.5.37, II.567a).88 The only can-
didate for this sort of resulting would be the body itself, which serves as an
internal cause of the subsistence. The problem with this response, however, is

87 See §3.1.2, at note 43.

88 With the withdrawal of the Word, the human body of Christ could have only a created subsist-
ence, as opposed to the uncreated subsistence it has in virtue of its union with the Second Person of
the Trinity.
 Quantity, Integral Parts, and Boundaries 99

that Suárez takes subsistence to be a modus rather than a res.89 His theological
example therefore shows at most that matter can be an active source of the
modes that naturally result from it. Suárez does explicitly allow at one point
that the modes of shape and place (ubi) naturally result “by the meditation
of quantity” (DM XVIII.3.3, I.616a). Yet there is still the question of whether
any new res can naturally result from this real accident. Some difficulty for
a positive answer derives from Suárez’s argument, considered previously,
that the fact that quantity imitates the passivity of matter is shown by the fact
that it cannot itself be the source of any new quantity. But if a quantitative
part cannot produce another quantitative part really distinct from itself, why
think that it can produce some indivisible limit really distinct from itself?
Suárez’s theological example provides no precedent for saying that it can.
Suárez also offers as an option that indivisibilia derive from “that action
by which God conserves matter, being as if some concreation [esse veluti
quamdam concreationem].” However, he immediately qualifies this with the
claim that they derive not from God’s creative act alone, but “from the power
of and due to a preexisting action” (ex vi et debito præexistentis actionis) (DM
XL.5.57, I.567). This leads us back to the question of whether passive quan-
tity can act in the required manner.
Though Suárez’s theological example does not help his case for the conclu-
sion that quantity can produce indivisible res, it does allow for the view that it
is responsible for changes in its modifications that occur when its parts join
or separate. That is, when the parts join, a new continuative boundary natu-
rally results from matter, which boundary can be understood to be a mod-
ification of the continuous object that these parts compose. And when the
parts separate, two new terminating boundaries that modify the separated
parts naturally result from the matter of those parts. There is no need to ap-
peal in these cases to the production by mere quantity of a new res.
It is clear enough from what Suárez says about indivisibilia in Disputatio
XL that he did not take this route.90 I hope to have shown that he had reason to
attempt to reconceive indivisibles in terms of his new modal distinction. But
even though Suárez himself never attempted this sort of reconceptualization,

89 Suárez offers subsistence as an example of a mode in DM VII.1.18, I.256; see also his discussion

of subsistence in DM XXXIV.2.20, II.359a.

90 Despite my own reservations, Suárez may well have thought that his arguments for moderate

realism are decisive (see note 85). However, I think that in the background is the fact that Thomists
and Scotists alike took this form of realism to be the only viable alternative to obviously inadequate
nominalist accounts of the indivisibles. Suárez did have a tendency to defend a consensus position
when at all possible.
100 The Metaphysics of the Material World

we will discover toward the end of the next chapter that Descartes defends
a kind of “modal realist” account of indivisible boundaries, in general, and
of two-​dimensional surfaces of parts of quantity, in particular.91 As I have
already indicated, however, this constitutes only one of the ways in which
Descartes’s metaphysics of the material world is linked to that of Suárez.

91 See §4.3.1.
 PART II
DE SC A RTE S
 4
Metaphysical Themes from Suárez

There is a trend in the recent literature on Descartes to emphasize the im-

portance of his relation to Suárez. In the French literature, one can trace
this trend to the attempt in Jean-​Luc Marion’s Sur la théologie blanche de
Descartes (1st edition, 1981) to argue that Suárez’s implicit destruction of
Thomistic analogy (what Marion calls l’analogie perdue) prepares the way for
Descartes’s embrace of equivocity in his doctrine of the creation of eternal
truths.1 In §2.1, I have called into question the purported destruction of
analogy in Suárez.2 Nonetheless, my stress here on Suárez is in line with the
emphasis in Marion and others on the importance of an understanding of
Descartes in terms of this particular scholastic thinker.
Not surprisingly, perhaps, there has been something of a backlash against
this sort of focus on Suárez. Thus, it has been claimed that Suárez was not
a particularly important source for Descartes, and that Descartes himself
relied more for his understanding of scholasticism on the Jesuit texts he had
been taught at La Flèche, which did not include Suárez’s Disputationes.3 One
could also argue that Suárez is not as important to Descartes as Eustachius
a Sancto Paulo, whose popular scholastic textbook Descartes at one time
intended to publish alongside, and as a counterpoint to, his own textbook
in philosophy.4 I do not want to deny either that Descartes had several im-
portant scholastic sources, or that Suárez was not always uppermost in his
own mind when he was considering his relation to scholasticism. Indeed,

1 For work in the Anglophone literature that emphasizes the importance of Suárez to Descartes,

see note 21.

2 One can also question Marion’s suggestion that Descartes embraces equivocity. See the claim in

Beyssade 1996 (a response to Marion 1996) that Descartes in fact endorses a form of analogy. On this
point, see also §4.1.2, after note 36.
3 See, for instance, the claim that “where Descartes’ doctrines resemble those of Suárez, they also

resemble those of the Jesuits he mentions in the 30 September 1640 letter, which would make the
hypothesis of Suárez’s influence superfluous” (Clemenson 2007: 12). Later in this chapter I discuss
further the letter referred to here.
4 The relevant text is Eustachius’s Summa philosophiæ quadripartita. In a letter to Mersenne

of December 1640, AT III.259–​60, Descartes indicates his interest in a textbook on his views that
incorporates this work. His later discovery that Euchachius had already died brought an end to this
project.

The Metaphysics of the Material World. Tad M. Schmaltz, Oxford University Press (2020).
© Oxford University Press.
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190070229.001.0001
104 The Metaphysics of the Material World

as I indicate later, there is no evidence that Descartes was even aware of the
Disputationes prior to the time of the Meditations. However, I do want to
claim that a consideration of Suárez is instructive insofar as it serves to draw
attention to three metaphysical “themes” that are reflected in Descartes’s own
account of the material world.
The first such theme, which I consider in §4.1, concerns the theory of
distinctions, and in particular the modal distinction. One commentator
has concluded that “for all its originality, Descartes’s metaphysics is deeply
entrenched in the Suarezian difference between res and modes” (Glauser
2003: 427). Though I have considerable sympathy for this conclusion, I indi-
cate two ways in which it must be qualified. First, there is reason to think that
Descartes’s view that there are modes that differ from substantial res predates
his one confirmed encounter with Suárez, and second, that there are impor-
tant features of his understanding of modes that serve to distinguish it from
Suárez’s. Nonetheless, the circumstantial evidence indicates that Suárez’s
writings directly influenced Descartes’s considered account (in his Principles
of Philosophy) of the theory of distinctions in general, and of modes and the
modal distinction in particular.
In contrast to the first theme, the other two metaphysical themes do not
concern any direct influence of Suárez on Descartes. Rather, they indicate the
presence of certain issues in Descartes that Suárez’s work serves to highlight.
I alluded to the second theme at the outset of the previous chapter, when
I noted that Suárez reveals one important feature of Descartes’s suggestion
in Meditation V that body is just “quantity, which the common philosophers
call continuous” (AT VII.63). In particular, it is Suárez more than other me-
dieval scholastics who emphasizes the close connection of continuous quan-
tity to the property of impenetrability. In §4.2, I consider the relevance of
this view to Descartes, who in a set of complex and not obviously consistent
remarks from his late correspondence, also posits such a connection. Though
Descartes differs from Suárez—​and indeed, all other scholastics—​in his un-
derstanding of the relation of quantity to material substance, it turns out that
he requires in the end some version of the Suárezian distinction between
quantified and unquantified extension.
In §4.3, I turn to the third and final Suárezian theme in Descartes. This
concerns Suárez’s treatment of indivisible boundaries. The link to Suárez
is revealed in Descartes’s own metaphysical account of surfaces, one of the
three traditional indivisibles. For reasons deriving in part from his theory of
the Eucharist, Descartes defends a “modal realist” account of surfaces that in
 Metaphysical Themes from Suárez 105

some way constitutes an advance over what I have previously characterized as

Suárez’s “moderate realism” concerning this issue (see §3.2.2). Nonetheless,
it turns out that Descartes’s account is burdened by a commitment to the very
feature that renders Suárez’s view problematic. In this way, awareness of the
relevant Suárezian background will allow us to appreciate both the strengths
and the weaknesses of Descartes’s account of the metaphysics of surfaces.

4.1. Theory of Distinctions II

4.1.1. From La Flèche to the Meditations

In September 1640, at the time he was putting the finishing touches on his
Meditations, Descartes reports to his friend Mersenne his intent to pre-
pare himself for the reaction of the Jesuits to his text by reviewing “some of
their philosophy, which I have not looked at for twenty years.” He notes that
he could recall only the Jesuit textbooks he read as a student, mentioning
specifically the works of the Coimbra commentators and of the scholastics
Toletus and Rubius (AT III.190).5 Descartes does not explicitly mention one
of the Coimbra commentators, Fonseca, who wrote his own commentary on
Aristotle’s Metaphysics that, as we know, includes a version of the Scotistic
theory of distinctions.6 Nonetheless, there is reason to think that Descartes
read this commentary as part of his training in metaphysics at La Flèche.
After all, the other scholastic texts Descartes mentions do not cover meta-
physics, and Suárez’s Disputationes would not have been suitable, given the
emphasis in Jesuit schools on the use of commentaries on Aristotle.7
Indeed, there is a passage from Le Monde (abandoned 1633), in which
Descartes employs a bit of scholastic terminology for which Fonseca’s com-
mentary seems a likely source. In the relevant passage, Descartes claims
that he explains in terms of his laws of nature all the features of bodies “that
the Doctors call Modos & entia rationis cum fundamento in re, as well as
Qualitates reales (their real qualities), in which I confess frankly not to find
more reality than the others” (AT XI.40). Suárez himself emphasizes that

5 The Coimbra commentators, or Conimbricenses, were a group of professors who taught at the

University of Coimbra in Portugal, whereas Francisco Toledo (Toletus) (1532–​1596) was a professor
at the Collegio Romano, and Antonio Rubio (Rubius) (1548–​1615) was a professor who taught in
Mexico. All wrote commentaries on Aristotle used in Jesuit schools, including La Flèche.
6 See the discussions in §2.2.2 and §3.2.2.
7 I follow here the argument in Clemenson 2007: 98n25.
106 The Metaphysics of the Material World

among previous scholastic authors, Fonseca was distinctive in offering a de-

velopment of the view that there are modos that are distinct ex natura rei but
not by a real distinction in the strict sense.
It is interesting that the passage from Le Monde lumps modes with entia
rationis cum fundamento in re: “beings of reason with a foundation in reality.”
For Fonseca, the latter would include privations, such as human blindness,
and negations, such as lack of sight in a rock, which in contrast to modes are
“not in things, but in the mind, and only objectively” (Fonseca 1964: II.462).
It might be thought, then, that Descartes is simply conflating what from
Fonseca’s perspective are two entirely different kinds of entities.8 Yet Fonseca
does insist that both modes and beings of reason with a foundation in reality
can truly be said of things in the world, and thus count as having some re-
ality, in contrast with merely “fictive beings” (entia ficta) such as chimeras,
which have no foundation in reality (Fonseca 1964: II.468). So Descartes’s
purported conflation may actually reflect an awareness of the implication of
the sort of position we find in Fonseca. It is worth adding, if only incidentally,
that on this point there is not as good a fit with Suárez’s Disputationes, which
rejects the view in Fonseca that entia rationis have a kind of real existence.9
In any event, the remarks from Le Monde indicate that Descartes retained
something of his scholastic education, even several years after he left La
Flèche. Moreover, the scholastic notion of a modus continued to have some
hold on him. Though to my knowledge this notion does not make an appear-
ance in his pre-​1640 writings beyond the parenthetical mention in Le Monde,
it is prominent in the Meditations. For Descartes explicitly invokes the notion
in Meditation III when he argues that he can be the source of his ideas of “ex-
tension, shape, position and motion” since he is a substance but what these
ideas represent “are merely modes of a substance” (AT VII.45).
Hobbes objected to the suggestion here that reality can admit of more or
less (RO III, AT VII.185). Such an objection reflects his “nominalist” posi-
tion that any accident of a body is merely a mode of conceiving a body that
is not distinct in reality from the body itself. Thus, the only reality is that of
substance.10 Descartes’s reply is curt, consisting in the insistence that “a sub-
stance is more of a thing [res] than a mode” (AT VII.185). Descartes is on

8 As charged, for instance, in Hattab 2009: 64.

9 See c­ hapter 2, note 3.
10 As indicated, for instance, in Hobbes’s stipulation in De corpore that an accident is “a mode of
conceiving a body” (cited in Pasnau 2011: 117). In effect, Hobbes equates a mode with what Descartes
called a “mode of thinking” (modus cogitandi), which is not distinct in reality from the object to
which the mode is attributed; see PP I.57–​58, AT VIIIA.26–​27.
 Metaphysical Themes from Suárez 107

Fonseca’s side in holding that a mode is not merely a creation of the intellect,
since it is something that is distinct ex natura rei—​albeit not ut res a re—​from
what it modifies.
There is another exchange with Hobbes that indicates a distinctive feature
of Descartes’s notion of mode. Hobbes had objected that Descartes’s sugges-
tion that the “determination” of motion in a particular direction is “in” the
motion “as in a subject” is “absurd since motion is an accident.” Following
Descartes’s lead, Hobbes draws on a comparison to the relation of a surface
(superficies) to a flat body.11 In line with a nominalist view we considered in
§3.3.1, he speaks of the surface as a three-​dimensional body insofar as it is
conceived in a particular manner, for instance, as round or square. Likewise,
Hobbes holds, determination is merely motion conceived in a particular
manner, as determined, for instance, to move to the right or left (Hobbes to
Mersenne for Descartes, March 30, 1641, AT III.343–​44).
In response, Descartes protests that “there is no absurdity in saying an ac-
cident can be the subject of another accident, just as we say that quantity is
the subject of another accident.” Clearly he is alluding here to the scholastic
view—​reflected in Aquinas’s account of the Eucharistic accidents—​that sen-
sible qualities inhere in quantity, which is itself a bodily accident.12 Descartes
notes that when he claimed that determination is to motion as a surface is
to a flat body, he intended to indicate not that motion is akin to a flat body
in being a substance, but only that it is among the “concrete things” (choses
concretes) that are to be contrasted with mere abstractions (Descartes to
Mersenne for Hobbes, April 21, 1641, AT III.355–​56). As we will discover
in §4.3, Descartes offers as an alternative to nominalism the view that a sur-
face is a two-​dimensional mode of a three-​dimensional substantial part of
a body. His warning to Hobbes is that motion is to be conceived not as a
three-​dimensional substantial part, but rather as a two-​dimensional mode.
Nonetheless, the determination of a motion is still a particular modal speci-
fication of that motion, just as the surface is a particular modal specification
of a bodily part.13 We have in Descartes, then, not the scholastic “realist” view
(considered in §3.1) that a real accident, such as quantity, can be the subject

11 The comparison is from Descartes to Mersenne, March 4, 1641, AT III.325, a letter that Mersenne

must have shared with Hobbes.

12 See the discussion toward the start of §3.1.1. As I have indicated (in §3.1.2, at note 30), Suárez

accepts this Thomistic view.

13 On Descartes’s view that determination is a mode of motion, see McLaughlin 2000: 87–​97.
108 The Metaphysics of the Material World

of other real accidents, but rather the position that a mode, such as motion,
can be the subject of other modes, such as determination.
As far as I can determine, there is no anticipation in Fonseca of Descartes’s
claim that modes can be subjects of other modes. Nor is there such a sugges-
tion in Suárez; indeed, I have noted the implication in his Disputationes that
modes must modify something that has the reality of a res, and so cannot
themselves be the subjects of modes.14 So on this point, Descartes does seem
to me to deviate from the path set out by earlier scholastic defenders of an in-
termediate modal distinction.
Of course, Descartes’s response to Hobbes indicates that he also reduced
all accidents to modes, a sort of reduction that scholastic defenders of modes
such as Fonseca and Suárez most assuredly could not accept.15 But there is
more to this reduction than Descartes’s denial of scholastic real accidents (as
prefigured in the passage from Le Monde). A further crucial issue concerns
the status of inherence. For Fonseca and Suárez alike, inherence is a mode of
real accidents such as quantity and qualitative affections, the latter of which
are themselves res. In their view, then, accidental res inhere, but never modes
of those res.16 In contrast, Descartes virtually defines modes in terms of in-
herence.17 In his “geometrical” summary of the Meditations in the Replies to
Objections II appended to this text, Descartes takes a substance to be that
“in which all things are immediately [inest immediate], as in a subject, that
is, all properties, or qualities, or attributes.” Thus, bodily substance “is the
immediate subject of local extension and the accidents that presuppose ex-
tension, as shape, position, local motion, etc.” (AT VII.161). Bodily modes
are accidents that inhere in a body as the immediate substantial subject of
those modes.18

14 See §2.2.2, after note 59.

15 Admittedly, Fonseca (confusingly) offers real accidents as “modes of the first kind”; see c­ hapter 2,
note 54. However, this is a case where a real distinction holds, and not merely a modal distinction.
Fonseca is at least committed to distinguishing real accidents from modes of the third kind, which
cannot be really as well as modally distinct.
16 For this position in Fonseca, see Fonseca 1964: II.400–​01. See also my discussion of Suárez’s ac-

count of the accidental mode of inherence in §2.3.3.

17 “Virtually defines”: see Rozemond’s claim that the “definitions” in this text “are best read not as

offering the essences of the items defined. Instead, they offer ways of picking out the entities in ques-
tion” (246). Nonetheless, the important point for my purposes is not that Descartes takes the essence
of a substance to consist in being the ultimate subject of inherence, but rather that he takes being such
an ultimate subject to be a feature we can use to pick out all and only substances (including God).
18 To be sure, when speaking of the relation of modes to substance Descartes typically uses the

term “inest” rather than the term “inhaeret.” However, by the former he seems to understand some-
thing like the inherence of an accident in a subject.
 Metaphysical Themes from Suárez 109

The stipulations here help to explain an odd feature of Descartes’s 1641

response to Hobbes. I have in mind his use of the example of quantity to il-
lustrate the fact that an accident can serve as the subject of other accidents. In
terms of his mature position in the Principles, to be examined in §4.1.2, this
example would be less than apt insofar as the quantity of a bodily substance is
not something modally distinct from that substance, but rather a “principal
attribute” identical to the substance itself. In terms of his remarks in Replies
to Objections II, however, the example is appropriate insofar as Descartes
is conceiving of bodily substance simply as an ultimate “immediate sub-
ject” of properties, and of local extension—​that is, as Descartes indicates in
Meditation V, continuous quantity—​as one of the properties that exists “in”
such a subject. What he fails to make clear at this point is that extension or
quantity is distinguished from other bodily accidents (that is, modes of ex-
tension/​quantity) in not being something distinct in reality from extended or
quantified substance.
Elsewhere in his replies to objections to the Meditations, there are addi-
tional signs of confusion on Descartes’s part regarding the status of modal
accidents. In the first set of Objections submitted by the Dutch priest Caterus
(Johannes de Kater), there is an appeal to the Scotistic notion of a formal dis-
tinction in response to the argument in Meditation VI that the fact that mind
and body can exist in separation follows simply from the fact that they can be
conceived separately. Caterus notes that according to Scotus, two items, such
as God’s justice and mercy, can be formally distinct without it being the case
that they can exist separately (AT VII.100). In response, Descartes observes
that Caterus’s formal distinction does not differ from a “modal distinction,”
which both apply merely to “incomplete beings,” as when one considers mo-
tion in abstraction from body. He claims that this distinction therefore does
not apply to the case of mind and body, since in this case we are considering
two “complete beings” (RO II, AT VII.120–​21).
Descartes fails to consider here whether the incompleteness of motion is
of the same kind as the incompleteness of divine justice. He admits this over-
sight in the Principles, when he notes at the end of the article on the “distinc-
tion of reason” that in his earlier response to Caterus “I did lump this type
of distinction [of reason] with the modal distinction,” though he adds that
this was simply because that response “was not a suitable place for making a
careful distinction between the two types; it was enough for my purpose to
distinguish both from the real distinction” (PP I.62, AT VIIIA.30). Descartes
suggests here that in his response to Caterus he of course recognized that
110 The Metaphysics of the Material World

what he called a formal distinction in fact includes two different kinds of

non-​real distinctions, namely, modal and rational, but that he had no reason
in the context of his response to distinguish between these two.
To my mind, however, the response to Caterus indicates a real confusion
on Descartes’s part concerning the nature of those distinctions that fall short
of a real distinction. In particular, in his response to Caterus, Descartes fails
to note that a modal distinction involves a distinction in reality, and not one
created merely by abstraction through inadequate concepts.19 In fact, I sus-
pect that his exchange with Caterus made clear to Descartes the need to re-
think his theory of distinctions, the result being the different version of this
theory that we will discover in the Principles.20
Descartes included a copy of his replies to Caterus with the text of the
Meditations that he sent to Arnauld. It is in his responses to Arnauld’s set
of objections that we find the first, and to my knowledge only, reference in
Descartes’s writings to the Disputationes of Suárez. This reference is in the
context of Descartes’s defense of his appeal in Meditation III to the notion of
“material falsity,” which applies to the case where a sensory idea, such as the
idea of cold, represents the mere absence of heat “as something real and pos-
itive” (AT VII.44). To Arnauld’s objection that on Descartes’s own view it is
only judgments that are false, and not ideas (O IV, AT VII.206–​07), Descartes
replies that he would have been worried about speaking of a kind of material
falsity of ideas that is distinct from the “formal falsity” of judgments “had
I not found the word materially used in the same sense in the first author
I came across: namely Fr. Suárez, Metaphysicæ disput. 9, section 2, number
4” (RO IV, AT VII.235).
This reference to Suárez seems to be rather incidental. After all, Descartes’s
remarks suggest that he came across Suárez’s discussion after he had already
formulated his notion of material falsity. Presumably it was Arnauld’s objec-
tion to this notion that prompted Descartes to seek out scholastic support.
Moreover, one can question his claim to Arnauld that Suárez understands the
notion of material falsity “in the same sense” as that suggested in Meditation
III. In the relevant portion of Suárez’s text, after all, what is said to be ma-
terially false is not the confused sensory ideas of absences, but rather the

19 I am drawing here on the discussion in Wells 1965, which concludes that in this response

“Descartes has mixed and confused instances of a proper modal distinction—​shape and motion—​
with instances of improper modes or modi cogitandi—​justice and mercy in God” (19).
20 See the discussion of the exchange between Caterus and Descartes in Ariew 2012: 44–​45, which

reaches a similar conclusion.

 Metaphysical Themes from Suárez 111

composition of words that serve as “signs” of something false, as in the case of

the sentence, “There is no God” (DM IX.2.4, I.322ab).
On the basis of this apparently unique reference to Suárez, then, one might
well dismiss the importance of this scholastic to the thought of Descartes.
However, at about the same time Descartes was reading the Disputationes, he
was transitioning from the confused theory of distinctions that he offered to
Caterus to a much clearer theory in the Principles that just so happens to in-
clude a version of the tripartite distinction that we find in Suárez’s text. There
is thus considerable reason to think that it was his reading of Suárez that led
Descartes to his mature theory of distinctions.21

4.1.2. The Suárezian Theory of the Principles

In his Principles of Philosophy (1644), Descartes posits three basic

distinctions. The first is a “real distinction” (distinctio realis), which “exists
only between two or more substances” (PP I.60, AT VIIIA.28). The second
is a “modal distinction” (distinctio modalis), which holds either between a
mode and the substance it modifies or between two different modes of the
same substance (PP I.61, AT VIIIA.29–​30). The third is a “distinction of
reason” (distinctio rationis), which holds either between a substance and one
of its attributes, or between two different attributes of the same substance (PP
I.62, AT VIIIA.30). Attributes are distinguished from modes insofar as the
modes of a substance can change while this substance persists, whereas the
attributes must exist just as long as the substance to which they are attributed
(PP I.56, AT VIIIA.26).
What is new here is the sharp distinction between the variable modes of
a substance and its invariable attributes. Earlier this sort of distinction had
been obscured by his characterization of both as properties that inhere in
an ultimate subject. Thus, we have seen the reference in Meditation III to
extension, shape, position, and motion equally as modes, as well as the stip-
ulation in Replies to Objections II that bodily substance is the immediate
subject equally of local extension and of accidents such as shape, position,
and local motion. To be sure, in the latter text Descartes did speak of various

21 On Descartes’s debt to Suárez’s theory of distinctions, see Glauser 2003. Cf. the discussions of

the influence of this theory on Descartes in Rozemond 1998: ch. 1, and Ariew 2012: 41–​46. For the
dissenting view that Suárez is not a crucial source for Descartes, see the claim cited in note 3.
112 The Metaphysics of the Material World

bodily accidents as “presupposing” local extension. However, his mature

theory indicates more clearly that this extension is not something distinct in
reality from substance that it inheres “in”; rather, it is a “principal attribute”
that can be identified with bodily substance itself.22 In contrast, the modes
that presuppose this attribute are in some way distinguishable in reality from
that substance insofar as the substance can exist without them. This distinc-
tion is not so crucial with respect to the Scotistic formal distinction that
Descartes no doubt encountered at La Flèche and that Caterus brought to
his attention again. Descartes’s response to Caterus indicates that he was led
by a focus on the latter distinction to lump attributes and modes together as
“incomplete beings.” However, the difference between attributes and modes
is crucial, given Suárez’s suggestion that Scotus’s formal distinction is for the
most part merely a distinction of reason, and not a distinction in reality. The
remarks in the Principles indicate that Descartes took this same route, in ef-
fect rejecting the suggestion in his response to Caterus that a formal distinc-
tion is merely a kind of modal distinction that stands between the real and
rational distinctions.23
Perhaps the clearest indication of the influence of Suárez on Descartes,
however, is from certain details of the account in the Principles of the
modal distinction. In the second chapter, I highlighted the fact that Suárez
distinguishes the distinction of modes of the same res from the distinction
of modes of different res.24 Even though there is a sense in which both kinds
of modes exhibit mutual separability, the former modes are inseparable
from the same res, whereas the latter modes are not. We find the same dis-
tinguishing of the cases in Descartes, and for virtually the same reason. Thus,
he claims in the Principles that whereas we cannot understand modes of the
same substance apart from that substance, when we compare modes of dif-
ferent substances, “it seems more appropriate to call this kind of distinction a
real distinction, rather than a modal distinction, since the modes in question

22 In taking Descartes to hold that a substance is the same as its principal attribute, I am following

the view in Nolan 1997. But cf. the dissenting view in Hoffman 2009a, according to which Descartes
takes the principal attribute to be only inseparable from, and not identical to, the substance to which
it is attributed. Skirry 2004 defends a view similar to Hoffman’s. However, evidence against this view
in Hoffman and Skirry is provided by Descartes’s insistence in the Principles that the thought and ex-
tension that constitute the natures of intelligent and corporeal substance, respectively, “must be con-
ceived as nothing other than thinking substance and extended substance, that is, as mind and body”
(PP I.63, AT VIIIA.30–​31; my emphasis).
23 On this point, see Wells 1965: 12–​13.
24 See §2.2.2, around Table 2.1.
 Metaphysical Themes from Suárez 113

cannot be understood apart from the really distinct substances of which they
are modes” (PP I.61, AT VIIIA.30).
To be sure, Descartes expresses the point about modal dependence in
terms of our conception, whereas Suárez expresses it in terms of metaphys-
ical relations. However, this difference is not as great as it appears, especially
since Descartes can close the gap by appealing to God’s power to bring about
whatever we can clearly and distinctly conceive. This appeal is most prom-
inent in his discussion of the real distinction between mind and body. In
Meditation VI, Descartes invokes the principle that “everything that I clearly
and distinctly understand is capable of being created by God so as to corre-
spond exactly with my understanding of it” in arguing for the conclusion that
“I am distinct from my body, and can exist without it” (AT VII.78). Likewise,
in the Principles he argues for the real distinction of mind and body by noting
that “the power that [God] previously had of separating [mind and body], or
conserving one without the other [sive ad unam absque alia conservandam],
is something he could not lay aside” (PP I.60, AT VIIIA.29).25 Given his doc-
trine of the creation of eternal truths, Descartes could not say—​as Suárez
does—​that not even God can bring it about that a mode can exist apart from
what it modifies.26 However, it seems that he could say that God has made it
the case, by means of his indifferent will, that a mode is by its very nature in-
separable from what it modifies.27
Descartes assumes that a mode must be conceived in terms of the sub-
stance it modifies. This of course marks a crucial difference from Suárez,
who takes modes to be tied to the res they modify, where these include “real
accidents”—​that is, quantity and certain qualities—​as well as substances.
There is a corresponding difference between the conceptions of the real dis-
tinction in the two thinkers: whereas Descartes restricts the real distinction
to substances, Suárez applies it to his broader category of res.

25 I take Descartes’s use of the Latin “sive” to indicate that he has synonymy in mind here, and not

alternation.
26 See, for instance, Descartes’s claim that “I do not think that we should ever say of anything that it

cannot be brought about by God. For since every basis of truth and goodness depends on his omnip-
otence, I would not dare to say that God cannot make a mountain without a valley, or bring it about
that 1 and 1 are not 3” (Descartes to [Arnauld], July 29, 1648, AT V.224). According to Suárez, how-
ever, God cannot create a mode in separation from the res it modifies even by his “absolute power”;
see, e.g., DM VII.1.18, I.256ab.
27 Descartes speaks at one point of the falsity of a triangle’s having interior angles that equal two

right angles as something that “God could have made possible, but that he has nevertheless wished
to make impossible” (Descartes to [Mesland], May 2, 1644, AT IV.118). Similarly, in some sense God
could have made it possible that a mode exist by itself, but has nevertheless made this impossible, as
shown by the fact that we cannot conceive a mode apart from what it modifies.
114 The Metaphysics of the Material World

As we know, Descartes rejects the existence of real accidents. Indeed, he

claims that “it is completely contradictory that there should be real accidents,
since whatever is real that can exist separately in this way is a substance, not
an accident.” He adds that it does not matter that the accident can exist sep-
arately only miraculously since “to occur naturally is nothing other than to
occur through the ordinary power of God, which in no way differs from his
extraordinary power” (AT VII.434–​35). Yet this consideration would not
have been compelling to Suárez, who took the fact that God can miraculously
conserve a real accident without the subject in which it naturally inheres to
show only that the accident is a res distinct from that subject, and not that
it is itself a substance. For even in its separated state the accident preserves
an intrinsic “aptitude” to inhere in a subject, something no substance can
possess.28
Nevertheless, Descartes’s view that all variable properties of a material
substance must be conceived through its principal attribute of extension—​
that is, continuous quantity—​provides perhaps the best basis for his rejec-
tion of material real accidents. For given this view, such properties must be
modes that are related by nonmutual separability to this attribute. The only
res there could be is the material substance itself, as identified with its prin-
cipal attribute. This substance would be something like the quantity that
Suárez posits, only without the aptitude to inhere in something else.29 Once
any other sort of material res has been eliminated in this way, modal deter-
mination of quantity can be the only sort of inherence that remains. And so,
I would argue, it is for Descartes.
In Suárez, the real distinction extends not only to relations involving non-​
substantial res, such as real accidents, but also to the relation between God
and creatures and even to the relations among Persons of the Trinity (see
§2.2.1). However, there are reasons to think that Descartes intended to re-
strict the real distinction to created substances. In the Principles, the primary
test of the real distinction is whether God can separate the items by keeping
each in existence without the other (PP I.60, AT VIIIA.29). One can under-
stand why this test is primary in light of Descartes’s own stipulation else-
where that “two substances are said to be really distinct when each of them
can exist apart from the other” (RO II, AT VII.162). But of course this sort of

28See the discussion of this point about accidents in §2.3.3, after note 101.
29Moreover, Descartes’s account of the relation of impenetrability to this attribute differs from the
account we find in Suárez; cf. §3.2.2 and §4.2.2.
 Metaphysical Themes from Suárez 115

distinction cannot hold between God and created substances insofar as the
latter cannot exist apart from the former.
At one point Descartes does refer to mutual separability as a sign of a real
distinction. This is in the context of his consideration of the objection that
“if we clearly understand one thing apart from another this is not sufficient
for the recognition that two things are really distinct.” His response is that
there is no “more reliable criterion for real distinction” than the one he has
provided (RO II, AT VII.132). As we have seen, Suárez needs to say that mu-
tual separability is merely a sign at least in part because it is merely sufficient,
and not necessary, for a real distinction. However, Descartes is claiming
only that our clear and distinct understanding of mutual separability is suf-
ficient for the inference to a real distinction, which is compatible with the
claim that such separability is not only sufficient but also necessary for this
sort of distinction.30 Indeed, in the Principles the claim is that mutual separa-
bility is necessary at least in the case of the relation of mind and body, where
such separability explicitly involves the possibility of God’s “conserving one
without the other” (PP I.60, AT VIIIA.29). Moreover, there is no indication
in the text that this case is special in that respect. In the end, I think, we must
conclude that Descartes takes the real distinction to be bound up with mu-
tual separability in a way that precludes its straightforward application to the
relation between God and creatures (to say nothing of what, for Descartes,
would be the purely theological case of the Trinity).31
Marleen Rozemond has suggested on Descartes’s behalf that mind-​
body distinctness requires that mind exist apart only from its union with a
body, and not from the existence of body in general (2011: 253). Here she
is drawing on the distinction in Suárez between separability with respect to
real union and separability with respect to existence.32 However, I see no ev-
idence from Descartes’s various discussions of the real distinction that he
is thinking merely of separability with respect to real union, and not with

30 In note 17, I cited the reading of the passage from Replies to Objections II in Rozemond 2011,

which takes it to show—​in line with Suárez’s view—​that the real distinction “does not consist in sep-
arability” (243); see also c­ hapter 2, note 32. However, to my mind this reading does not take into ac-
count the significant differences between Suárez and Descartes on the relation of mutual separability
to the real distinction.
31 In effect, I am shielding Descartes from the objection in Hoffman 2009a that he cannot take the

sort of separability required for the real distinction to be separability with respect to existence insofar
as “it would follow that God is not really distinct from creatures but only modally distinct from them,
and therefore, mind and body would also be modally distinct from each other” (61). For further con-
sideration of Hoffman’s own proposal concerning the sort of separability required for Descartes’s real
distinction, see note 35.
32 See §2.2.1, after note 32.
116 The Metaphysics of the Material World

respect to existence. Indeed, he seems clearly to have separability with re-

spect to existence in mind when he tells a correspondent that when he calls a
created substance something that subsists per se (per se subsistat), he means
that it is “such a thing that it can be without any other created thing [talem
rem ut asbsque omni alia creata esse possit]” (Descartes to “Hyperaspistes,”
AT III.429). The implication here is that an immaterial substance is really
distinct from body in the sense that it can exist in the absence of any sort of
extension.
Such an implication is reflected as well in the important correspondence
that Descartes had toward the end of his life with the “Cambridge Platonist”
Henry More. In this correspondence, More presses Descartes to admit that
extension must be contained even in the essence of God and angels in-
sofar as something must exist somewhere in order to exist at all (see More to
Descartes, December 11, 1648, AT V.239–​40). In response, Descartes insists
that in virtue of its essence an immaterial substance such as God or an angel
“has no relation to place at all” (April 15, 1649, AT V.343), drawing on his ear-
lier claim in the same letter that “if there were no bodies, I could not conceive
of any space with which an angel or God would be co-​extensive” (AT V.342).
Here the distinction of the essence of an angel from extension requires not
only that it can exist in separation from a union with any existing body, but
also that it can exist even if no body, and thus no space/​extension, exists.33 To
be sure, Descartes concedes to More that God must be present everywhere
by his essence since he is so present by his power and “in God there is no
distinction between essence and power.” He concludes that “it is better to
argue in such cases about our own mind or about angels, which are more on
the scale of our perception, rather than to argue about God” (AT V.343).34
However, the indication here is that in addition to angelic minds, our human
mind also excludes extension from its essence in the sense that it can exist
even if no other extension exists with which it could be co-​extensive.35
33 In the More correspondence, Descartes claims that “it is not clear by natural reason alone

whether angels are created like minds distinct from bodies, or like minds united to bodies” (August
1649, AT V.402). One possibility he leaves open here is that angels naturally exist in separation from a
union with a body, something which it seems does not suffice for them to have no relation to place in
virtue of their essence.
34 One crucial difference is that Descartes takes the power by which an immaterial substance is

related to extension to be a mode that such a substance can lack, as in the case where there is no ex-
tension (April 15, AT V.343), whereas he is committed to the view that God, being essentially immu-
table, can have no modes (see PP I.56, AT VIIIA.26). This makes it more difficult for him to say that
God has no relation to extension by virtue of his essence.
35 See §4.2 for Descartes’s account in the correspondence with More of the co-​extension of imma-

terial substances with bodies. There is the alternative view in Hoffman 2009a that Descartes’s real
distinction requires only that each of two really distinct items can exist without the principal attribute
 Metaphysical Themes from Suárez 117

Interestingly, the restriction in the More correspondence to created minds

is similar to the restriction to creatures that I have found in Descartes’s offi-
cial account of the real distinction. We have seen that the restriction in this
correspondence is linked to the fact that there is no distinction of power
and essence in God. Likewise, the restriction in the official account seems to
be linked to the special nature of God. In particular, there is the indication
in the Principles that the notion of substantiality to which the real distinc-
tion applies differs from the notion of divine substantiality. Thus, Descartes
claims in this text that “the name of substance cannot apply univocally
[univoce], as it is said in the schools, that is, there is no meaning of the term
that can be distinctly understood to be common to God and creatures” (PP
I.51, AT VIIIA.24). The argument here is that strictly speaking the notion of
substance, as “the thing that so exists that it depends on nothing else to exist,”
can apply to God alone. In contrast, it is built into the notion of a created
substance that it essentially depends (but so depends only) on God for its
existence. Given this difference, we cannot apply the same rule to determine
the real distinction of God from creatures that we apply to determine the real
distinction among created substances. Nor is there any need to apply this
rule in the former case since the nature of divine substantiality itself requires
a lack of dependence on any other thing for existence.
One can find in the literature the assumption that in denying the univocity
of substance, Descartes is committing himself to equivocity, that is, to the
claim that there is no metaphysical similarity between divine and creaturely
substantiality.36 However, such an assumption seems to overlook the option
that Descartes accepted a form of Suárezian analogy. And indeed, Suárez’s
view that God’s independent existence differs essentially from the dependent
existence of creatures seems to track the reason Descartes provides in the
Principles for denying that the name of substance applies univocally.37

of the other “existing in it.” Hoffman takes this sort of separability to be less problematic for Descartes
than separability with respect to existence (see note 31). However, he also admits that the sort of
separability he posits is relatively weak insofar as “it would allow that mind and body are really dis-
tinct even if one of them requires the existence of the other in order to exist and even if one of them
requires a real union with the other in order to exist” (64). But as in the case of Rozemond, my re-
sponse to Hoffman is that Descartes’s remarks to More indicate that a more robust sort of separability
is required for the real distinction of mind (whether human or angelic) from body or extension.
36 See, for instance, Secada 2006: 77 and Brown 2011: 28, in both of which equivocity is assumed

without much argument. And of course, we also have the claim in Marion 1981—​noted at the outset
of this chapter—​that Suárez’s rejection of analogy prepared the way for Descartes’s embrace of
equivocity.
37 For Suárez’s account of analogy, see the discussion in §2.1.
118 The Metaphysics of the Material World

This point arguably serves to further distinguish the view in the Principles
from the position that Descartes expressed in earlier writings published with
the Meditations. I have mentioned that in Replies to Objections II Descartes
defines substance as the ultimate subject of properties, where these include
both attributes and modes. But there is the further suggestion in this text
that such a notion of substance applies univocally to God and creatures.
Descartes notes there that just as mind is “the substance in which thought is
immediately [cui inest immedate]” and body “the substance that is the imme-
diate subject [subjectum immediatum] of local extension and the accidents
that extension presupposes,” so God is the substance “in which [in qua] we
conceive absolutely nothing that involves some defect of limitation in per-
fection” (AT VII.161–​62). But it is the existence of such a univocal notion
of substance that Descartes is concerned to deny in the Principles, where he
conceives of God not as the ultimate subject of properties that are unlimited
in perfection, but rather as a totally independent being.38
Nevertheless, it must be admitted that Descartes’s new denial of univocity
does not itself require the restriction of the real distinction to created
substances. After all, Suárez’s acceptance of an analogical relation between
God and creatures did not prevent him from holding that God and creatures
are really distinct. I suspect that the actual motivation for the restriction is
Descartes’s desire to preserve the result that mutual separability is both nec-
essary and sufficient for a real distinction.39 Though Suárez allowed for the
sufficiency of mutual separability in existence for this distinction, he recog-
nized that he could not assert its necessity insofar as God is said to be really
distinct from creatures (among other exceptions). What Descartes offers is a
streamlined version of the real distinction that is to be understood ultimately
in terms of God’s ability to conserve each of two really distinct entities in ex-
istence without so conserving the other. Such a version would indeed require
a restriction of the real distinction to created substances.40

38 Descartes’s remarks in Meditation III do commit him to the conclusion that the perfections that

exist in God are simple and unified; see AT VII.50. However, this conclusion seems to be consistent
with the implication in Replies to Objections II that the unified set of perfections exist “in” God, as in
an ultimate subject of properties.
39 This result seems to be something that Descartes carries over from his pre-​Principles writings. In

his exchange with Caterus, for instance, Descartes does not challenge Caterus’s assumption that he
takes a real distinction to require the inference from distinct conception to mutual separability with
respect to existence (RO I, AT VII.100).
40 I have indicated, however, that even when it is restricted to creatures Suárez cannot allow that

a real distinction requires mutual separability; see especially the case of the relation of a whole to its
parts considered in §2.2.1, after note 44. As I argue in §5.2.2, this case creates difficulty for Descartes’s
application of the real distinction to the parts of material substance.
 Metaphysical Themes from Suárez 119

Likewise, I think that Descartes offers a streamlined version of the modal

distinction, according to which nonmutual separability is not only necessary
but also sufficient for such a distinction. Here again Suárez was precluded
from asserting the sufficiency of this sort of separability by the case of the
relation of God and creatures, which involves nonmutual separability but
not a modal distinction. But this is not a problem for Descartes, given that
he has excluded this relation from the scope of real and modal distinctions.
We can thus understand the theory of distinctions in the Principles as a kind
of “Suárez-​lite,” that is, Suárez’s version without the various complications
concerning the necessity and sufficiency of mutual and nonmutual separa-
bility,41 and also without non-​substantial res and their modes of inherence
(yet with the addition of modes of modes).
Though the streamlined theory in the Principles avoids the confusions
of the discussion in response to Caterus, there is one text that shows that
Descartes was not immune to the influence of these confusions even in
the post-​Principles period. This text is from a letter to an unknown corre-
spondent dating from 1645 or 1646.42 In this letter Descartes revisits his ac-
count of the modal distinction with reference to the discussion of it both in
his response to Caterus and in the Principles. Though initially beginning in
French, Descartes quickly switches to Latin, appealing to a distinction

between Modes properly speaking, and Attributes without which the things of
which they are attributes could not be; or between modes of the things them-
selves, and modes of thinking (pardon me if I change the language here to
express myself better). (AT IV.448–​49)

As Descartes indicates, he is drawing on his account of universals in the

Principles, according to which a universal, such as time or number, is only
“a mode of thinking” (modus cogitandi) when it is considered apart from
concrete particulars, and thus “only in the abstract or in general” (tantum
in abstracto, sive in genera consideratur) (PP I.58, AT VIIIA.27). In his letter
Descartes identifies these modes of thinking with the attributes that are said

41 For a list of the exceptions in Suárez to the rules concerning the relations of mutual and

nonmutual separability to the real and modal distinctions, respectively, see Table 2.1.
42 Though the precise dating is uncertain, it is clear from the specific references to the Principles

that it post-​dates this text. Cf. the discussions of this letter in Wells 1965, Skirry 2004, and Brown
2011, which differ from my own insofar as they take the remarks in this letter to reflect Descartes’s
considered position, as opposed to a reversion to an earlier, more confused view.
120 The Metaphysics of the Material World

in the Principles to be distinct merely in reason from particular substances

(AT IV.349).
So far, so good; but then the response to Caterus intervenes. Continuing to
express himself in Latin, Descartes notes that though he did speak of the dis-
tinction among attributes as a modal one, nonetheless this is

only in a broader sense of the term, and it is perhaps better called Formal
[Formalis]. But to avoid confusion, in my Principles of Philosophy, article 60
[sic], where I discuss it explicitly, I call it a distinction of Reason [distinctionem
Rationis] (namely of Reasoned reason [rationis Ratiocinatæ]); and because
I recognize no [distinction of] Reasoning reason [rationis Ratiocinatis],
that is, which has no foundation in things (for we cannot think without a
foundation), I did not add the term Ratiocinatæ. . . . So then I posit three
distinctions: Real, which is between two substances; Modal and Formal, or of
Reasoned reason [rationis Ratiocinatæ]; which three, however, if opposed to
the distinction of Reasoning reason [distinctioni rationis Ratiocinatis], can be
called Real [Reales]. (AT IV.349–​50)

Descartes certainly was attempting to show his correspondent that he could

speak the scholastic language. However, his use of the technical terminology
misfires at a couple of points. The first, and least serious, misfire concerns
the difference between the distinctions rationis ratiocinatis and rationis
ratiocinatæ. As we have seen, Suárez followed a common scholastic position
in holding that whereas a distinction rationis ratiocinatis employs only one
concept, such as the distinction involved in the claim that Peter is Peter, a
distinction rationis ratiocinatæ employs different incomplete concepts of one
and the same thing, such as the distinction involved in the claim that Peter
is human.43 Thus, when Suárez says that only the latter has a foundation in
reality, he means merely that it alone has such a foundation for a connection
between two distinct concepts. Contrary to what Descartes insinuates, this is
not to deny that a distinction rationis ratiocinatis has some foundation in re-
ality, for example, in the self-​identity of Peter.
More seriously confused, however, is the claim in Descartes’s letter that
both the modal distinction among real modes and the “formal” distinc-
tion among modes of thinking can be classified as distinctions rationis
ratiocinatæ. Such a claim backtracks on the advance accomplished by means

43 See the discussion in §2.2.1, after note 30.

 Metaphysical Themes from Suárez 121

of the differentiation in the Principles of the distinction involving modes,

which occurs in reality, from the distinction involving attributes, which
occurs only in reason. The latter distinction is in fact of the same general kind
as a distinction rationis ratiocinatis, and in this way is to be distinguished not
only from a real but also from a modal distinction. In his letter, Descartes
does end by asking (in French) that his correspondent forgive him if “this
discussion is too confused,” adding that he was rushed because “the Postman
is about to leave” (AT IV.350). But this letter reveals not only a confusion
brought on perhaps by haste, but also the clear superiority of the Suárezian
theory of distinctions presented in the Principles over the earlier and more
Scotistic theory that Descartes sketched in his response to Caterus and that
evidently continued to retain some hold on him.44

4.2. Quantity and Impenetrability II

4.2.1. Extension and Impenetrability

I have mentioned at several points Descartes’s reference in Meditation V to

the fact that he has a distinct imagination both of body in terms of nothing
other than the “quantity that the common philosophers call continuous,”
and of the various parts of body with their various sizes, shapes, positions,
and motions (AT VII.63). Though it might be tempting on the basis of these
remarks to simply identify quantity with spatial extension, our previous
consideration of Suárez’s view of continuous quantity indicates the need for
some caution on this issue.45 And indeed, Descartes indicates that he is aware
of the fact that scholastic impenetrable quantity cannot simply be equated
with mere extension. In remarks in Replies to Objections VI, for instance,
he contrasts the “true extension of body” with the extension of the scholastic
“real quality” of “gravity” (gravitas). Whereas the former “is such as to ex-
clude any interpenetration of parts” (ut omnem partium penetrabilitatem
excludat), the latter is something that can be “coextensive with the heavy

44 I think the clear differences between these two theories serve to counter the claim in Clemenson

2007 that the similarities of Descartes’s theory of distinctions to the versions found in Jesuit
scholastics other than Suárez, such as Fonseca, “suggests that they could just as easily have served
as the source of his views” (30). The influence of Fonseca arguably explains the view in Descartes’s
response to Caterus and his letter to the unknown correspondent, but it seems to me that such an in-
fluence cannot explain his shift to the version of the theory of distinctions in the Principles.
45 See §3.2.2.
122 The Metaphysics of the Material World

body” (corpori gravi . . . coextensa) (AT VII.442). According to Descartes,

then, body is not something that exhibits mere spatial presence, but rather
has a true extension that involves impenetrability of parts.
In the passage from this text, Descartes is concerned to relate our concep-
tion of the extension of gravity to our conception of the way in which our
mind is co-​extensive with our body. Thus, he claims that just as we conceive
of gravity as equally able to exercise its force in any part of a heavy body,
so also we “understand the mind to be coextensive with the body [corpori
coextensam], the whole mind in the whole body and the whole mind in any
one of its parts” (AT VII.442). And this is not the only text in which he makes
this sort of comparison. Most famously, Descartes claims in his correspond-
ence with Elisabeth that the scholastic conception of the way in which “heav-
iness” (pesanteur) moves a heavy body derives from a misguided application
of the “primitive notion” of the way the human soul moves the body to which
it is united (Descartes to Elisabeth, May 21, 1643, AT III.667–​68). Given his
earlier remarks in Replies to Objections VI, it is perhaps less surprising that
Descartes tells Elisabeth in a follow-​up letter that she should feel free to at-
tribute a kind of extension to an embodied mind just as long as she keeps in
mind that “the extension of this matter is of a different nature from the exten-
sion of the thought, because the former has a determinate location, such that
it thereby excludes all other bodily extension, which is not the case with the
latter” (Descartes to Elisabeth, June 28, 1643, AT III.694). In fact, the connec-
tion of this point to the example of heaviness is only reinforced by Descartes’s
remark in a 1641 letter to the correspondent “Hyperaspistes” that

the mind is co-​extended with an extended body [mens corpori extenso

coextendatur] even though it has of itself no real extension in the sense
of occupying place and excluding other things from it. How that can be,
I explained above with my illustration of heaviness conceived as a real
quality. (AT III.434)

Descartes’s discussion of gravity or heaviness therefore does seem to suggest

that we must distinguish between two different kinds of extension: the first,
the extension of a body, which requires impenetrability, and the second, the
sort of extension that, as Descartes sees it, the scholastics attribute to gravity/​
heaviness but that is more properly attributed to the human mind, which
involves some sort of co-​extension that does not include impenetrability.
 Metaphysical Themes from Suárez 123

“As Descartes sees it”: It should not simply be assumed here that Descartes
is accurately capturing the scholastic view of the quality of heaviness or
gravity. Indeed, in light of our previous consideration of Suárez’s account of
extension, there is reason to doubt that he would accept such a view. Recall
that for Suárez there are three kinds of extension: the two bodily forms of ex-
tension, both of which require distinct parts but only one of which requires
impenetrability, and a further form of extension that requires neither im-
penetrability nor distinct parts, which applies only to spiritual entities. We
have previously encountered the view in Suárez qualities such as a partic-
ular whiteness have parts that are co-​located with, and inhere in, the parts of
quantity.46 But then the relation of the whiteness to quantity is part to part,
rather than, as in the case of the relation of a spiritual substance to a body,
whole to part. Since Suárez holds that gravity, like whiteness, is a qualitative
real accident, he is committed to the conclusion that it has a kind of exten-
sion that differs from the extension that pertains to spiritual substances.47
Descartes’s suggestion that the scholastics conceive of the extension of
gravity in terms of an extension suitable only for the soul therefore overlooks
the Suárezian distinction of the extension of real accidents from the exten-
sion that is exclusive to immaterial substances. Perhaps the best explanation
for this oversight is that Descartes simply didn’t recognize the possibility of
any sort of bodily extension that lacks impenetrability but also differs from
the extension a soul possesses when it is present in a body “whole in whole
and whole in each part.”48
It must be said, however, that Descartes’s own view of the relation of bodily
extension to impenetrability is not entirely clear. For Descartes’s most ex-
tensive consideration of this issue, we must turn again to his late, great
correspondence with More.49 I have noted More’s opening claim in this cor-
respondence that extension must be included in the essence of immaterial
substances such as angels and God. More holds that these substances are dis-
tinguished from bodies by the fact that only the latter possess an impene-
trability that consists in the fact that it “cannot penetrate other bodies or be
penetrated by them” (More to Descartes, December 11, 1648, AT V.240).50
46 See §3.1.2, after note 29.
47 For the claim in Suárez that gravitas is an accidental power really distinct from material sub-
stance, see DM XVIII.3.22, I.622b–​623a. Following Aristotle, Suárez includes bodily powers along
with proper sensibles such as whiteness in the category of quality.
48 For a further comparison of the views of Suárez and Descartes on this issue, see §4.2.2.
49 There is an initial reference to this correspondence in §4.1.2, after note 32. On the exchange be-

tween Descartes and More on the issue of impenetrability, see also Anfray 2014.
50 On More’s views on space and extension, which shifted over time, see Reid 2007.
124 The Metaphysics of the Material World

But though Descartes consistently grants in response that the extension of

bodies involves impenetrability in some way, he offers different views of the
relation of the latter to the former that do not appear to be completely com-
patible. Initially he insists to More that impenetrability is not a “true and es-
sential differentia” of body, as extension is, but rather “a property of the fourth
kind” (proprium quarto modo), as risibility is in the case of human beings. In
scholastic logic, properties of the fourth kind, or propria, are something dis-
tinct from the essence of a species that nonetheless always belong to all and
only members of that species, as in the case of risibility. However, Descartes
indicates a different understanding of this sort of property when he tells
More that impenetrability counts as a proprium insofar as it involves “a ref-
erence to parts” and thus presupposes “the concept of division or limitation,”
whereas “we can conceive a continuous body of indeterminate magnitude,
or indefinite, in which nothing beyond extension is considered” (Descartes
to More, February 5, 1649, AT V.269).51 Thus, the fact that impenetrability is
only a proprium is supposed to follow from the fact that we can conceive an
undivided extension that lacks it.52
In a later letter to More, however, Descartes offers an argument for the
conclusion that “impenetrability pertains to the essence of extension
[impentrabilitas ad essentiam extensionis . . . pertinere] and not to anything
else.” The argument is that “one cannot understand one part of an extended
thing to penetrate another part that is equal to it without understanding
thereby that the overlapping part of its extension to have been taken away
or annihilated: however what is annihilated cannot penetrate any thing”
(Descartes to More, April 5, 1649, AT V.342). But then it seems that impen-
etrability of parts belongs to the essence of body after all, and is not merely a
proprium. So which is it?
I think we can best address this question by appealing to a distinction
in Descartes between two different kinds of parts. Such a distinction is in-
dicated by his claim in the Principles that whereas there is a division into
parts that “occurs simply in our thought,” actual division can occur only
by means of motion (PP II.23, AT VIIIA.52–​53). We can thus distinguish

51 In this respect, impenetrability as Descartes describes it here is perhaps more similar to

the quality of coldness that, according to Suárez, water can lack when heated but that necessarily
“emanates” from the substantial form of water when the external source of heat is removed; see DM
XV.1.8, I.500a. Thus, coldness, like impenetrability, is something its subject can lack, but also some-
thing that this subject necessarily possesses by its nature when it is in a certain state.
52 Presumably impenetrability remains a property since it follows necessarily from the division of

extension, and so is an attribute rather than a mode of the actually divided portions of extension.
 Metaphysical Themes from Suárez 125

between physical parts of matter, which are individuated by actual motion,

and metaphysical parts of matter, which are divided in our thought, without
the need for any actual division of the matter.53 With this distinction goes a
distinction between two different kinds of impenetrability, namely, on the
one hand, physical impenetrability, which involves the resistance of a phys-
ical part to interpenetration by other physical parts as it separates, and on
the other hand, metaphysical impenetrability, which involves the occupation
of a place by a metaphysical part to the exclusion of all other metaphysical
parts. When Descartes tells More that impenetrability is a proprium, he can
be taken to refer to the fact that matter considered merely as indefinitely ex-
tended lacks the sort of actual division through motion required for physical
impenetrability. Nonetheless, even this sort of actually undivided matter has
metaphysical parts into which it is divisible in thought, and these parts will
exhibit a metaphysical impenetrability that can be said to pertain to the es-
sence of body. Thus, when Descartes says that “extension in length, width
and breadth” is a principal attribute that “constitutes the nature of corporeal
substance” (as in PP I.53, AT VIIIA.235), he has in mind metaphysically im-
penetrable extension.
The account that I attribute to Descartes may allow us to have more sym-
pathy than some commentators have exhibited for the particular argument
he presents to More for the impossibility of the interpenetration of parts.
Jonathan Bennett has objected, for instance, that this argument is circular
since it simply assumes—​what is in question—​that bodies cannot have
volumes that interpenetrate (Bennett 2001: I.31). Yet insofar as Descartes is
working with a notion of volume or extension that has metaphysical impen-
etrability already built into it, as pertaining to the very essence of extension,
it is entirely natural for him to conclude that such interpenetration is impos-
sible. This argument need not convince those who reject this sort of under-
standing of extension, of course, but Descartes could fairly ask such critics
how they conceive of extension and how their conception can explain the
plain fact of impenetrability.54
Further, there is Pasnau’s more recent objection that the argument that
Descartes offers to More is problematic insofar it “seems to apply to any sort
of co-​location,” ruling out, for instance, the co-​location of God with bodies

53 The distinction in Descartes between these two kinds of parts will be important for the consider-

ation later of his account of the nature of “bodies-​taken-​in-​general”; see §5.1.2.

54 One possible response here, which we find in Suárez, is that impenetrability is a causal effect of

quantified extension that God can block by means of his absolute power; cf. §3.1.2 and §4.2.2.
126 The Metaphysics of the Material World

(Pasnau 2011: 319). Important here, though, is Descartes’s insistence to More

that God and finite minds do not have “true extension” since they “cannot
be distinguished into parts, and certainly not into parts that have determi-
nate sizes and shapes” (Descartes to More, February 5, 1648, AT V.270). In
a later letter he explains that though incorporeal substances such as angels
have an “extension of power” (extensionem potentiæ), they nonetheless have
no “extension of substance” (extensio substantiæ) (Descartes to More, April
15, 1649, AT V.342). We can take the extension of substance here to be quan-
tified extension, something that essentially involves at least metaphysical
impenetrability. In contrast, the extension of power lacks both physical and
metaphysical impenetrability. Since the (physical or metaphysical) impene-
trability of quantified extension precludes only the co-​location of different
(physical or metaphysical) parts of this sort of extension, it is compatible
with the co-​location of these parts with the subject of the extension of power.
Admittedly, it is not entirely clear what sort of extension Descartes is attrib-
uting to angels and other immaterial substances. His remark to More that the ex-
tension of power in an angel is exhibited by the fact that this being “can exercise
power now on a greater now on a lesser part of corporeal substance” (Descartes
to More, April 15, 1649, AT V.342) might seem to indicate that he is requiring
that only the bodily effects of an angel have a spatial location, and not the angel
itself. Yet Descartes also says in this correspondence that incorporeal substances
are “forces or powers” that are present in bodies “just as fire is in white-​hot iron
without being iron” (Descartes to More, February 5, 1649, AT V.270). It is dif-
ficult to see how he could have thought that only the effects of the fire, and not
the fire itself, are spread out in the iron. Likewise, it is difficult to see how in his
earlier writings he could have understood the scholastics to hold that the quality
of heaviness or gravity itself has no spatial presence, but merely has spatially
located effects. At the very least, his examples provide some reason to conclude
that immaterial substances have a kind of literal spatial presence that does not
involve the sort of exclusive occupation that derives from impenetrability.55
Of course, it might be that in the end Descartes simply did not have a set-
tled position on the nature of the extension that can be attributed to minds.56

55 As indicated previously, according to Descartes the presence of immaterial substances is distinc-

tive not only in lacking any sort of impenetrability, but also in being present “whole in each part.” For
consideration of some complications regarding this feature of Descartes’s account of spiritual exten-
sion, which More labeled “holenmerism,” see Rozemond 2003.
56 See for instance the conclusion in Reid 2008 that the claim that Descartes’s texts reveal that cre-

ated minds have a “substantial” spatial presence is “not proven” since they allow equally for the possi-
bility that this presence is merely “operational” (107–​08).
 Metaphysical Themes from Suárez 127

Certainly his discussion of bodily impenetrability indicates that he was still

working out his view of the contrasting case of impenetrable bodily exten-
sion. Nonetheless, it is clear that More’s objections prompted from him the
admission that impenetrable extension—​that is, the “true extension” of
bodies—​must be distinguished from an extension that allows for co-​location,
however the latter is ultimately to be conceived. As indicated in the previous
chapter, a similar sort of distinction is crucial as well for Suárez’s defense of
“quantity realism.”57 This might lead one to expect that the impenetrability
that Descartes attributes to “the true extension of bodies” is very much like
the impenetrability that Suárez takes to derive from quantity. But though
both sorts of impenetrability involve a special kind of exclusive occupation of
a place that goes beyond mere extension, it turns out that they also differ in
certain crucial respects.

4.2.2. Quantity in Descartes and Suárez

In comparing the views of the relation of impenetrability to continuous

quantity in Descartes and Suárez, I start with an initial (but only) apparent
convergence that derives from a feature of the discussion in the More cor-
respondence that we have just considered. This is Descartes’s claim to More
that since impenetrability requires a reference to parts, it cannot be a feature
of “a continuous body of indeterminate magnitude, or indefinite, in which
nothing beyond extension is considered” (AT V.269). As we have seen, such
a body must be distinguished from one that is actually divided, the parts of
which necessarily exhibit physical impenetrability. There is a related distinc-
tion in Suárez, though one that does not directly concern the issue of im-
penetrability. Recall that while he rejects Fonseca’s intermediate “potential
distinction,” he nonetheless allows that continuous quantity has a special
sort of unity that distinguishes it from accidental collections of heteroge-
neous parts. As I have understood Suárez’s position, this distinction turns on
the fact that the parts of the former, in contrast to the parts of the latter, are
merely incomplete or partial beings.58
Descartes’s remarks to More may seem to suggest similarly that the parts
that compose a continuous body that is undivided are merely incomplete or

57 See §3.1.2, after note 28.

58 See §3.2.2, after note 63.
128 The Metaphysics of the Material World

partial beings. If so, then Descartes could perhaps admit as well that the un-
divided body has a special sort of unity that the divided body lacks. However,
it seems to me that Descartes does not have the theoretical resources to allow
for this sort of distinction. As we know, Suárez’s real distinction applies to res,
which can be substances or real accidents.59 But his notion of res is flexible
enough to apply not only to integral parts that are complete beings, but also
to those that are incomplete beings, including the integral parts of a contin-
uous whole. Of course, Descartes’s real distinction is restricted to (created)
substances. Yet his streamlined notion of a real distinction does not seem
to allow for really distinct substances that are themselves incomplete. To be
sure, Descartes does note at one point that a substance can be called incom-
plete “insofar as it is referred to some other substance in conjunction with
which it forms a something that is a unity in its own right.” He offers here
the example of a hand that “is an incomplete substance when it is referred to
the whole body of which it is a part.” However, Descartes also insists that no
substance “has anything incomplete about it qua substance,” and thus that
the hand “is a complete substance when considered on its own” (RO IV, AT
VII.222). Whereas for Suárez the parts of a continuous extension are intrin-
sically incomplete or partial, Descartes indicates that no substance can be
incomplete in itself.60
The differences here with Suárez are reinforced by Descartes’s claim to
Gibieuf that “from the fact that I consider two halves of a part of matter,
however small it may be, as two complete substances [deux substances
completes], . . . I conclude with certainty that they are really divisible” (January
19, 1642, AT III.477). What holds for the smallest part of matter holds as well
for an undivided continuous body with indefinite extension: the latter also is
composed of parts that are themselves complete substances. The unity that
Suárez attributes to continuous extension therefore cannot be attributed in
the same way to the undivided continuous body of Descartes.
I have claimed that Descartes can allow for the position in Suárez that
even an undivided continuous quantity exhibits impenetrability. In partic-
ular, I take Descartes to hold that such a quantity can exhibit a metaphysical
impenetrability that is essential to it. Nevertheless, there remains a real dif-
ference between Suárez and Descartes with respect to the way in which im-
penetrability is related to continuous quantity. The indication in Descartes

59 See §2.2.1.
60 For a related point that focuses on Suárez’s view of the incompleteness of essential parts, see
Rozemond 1998: 156–​57.
 Metaphysical Themes from Suárez 129

is that metaphysical impenetrability is a logical consequence of the nature of

quantified extension. In contrast, Suárez at least suggests that impenetrability
derives from quantity by means of the causal relation of natural resulting.
This marks a difference from Descartes insofar as Suárez distinguishes the
case where what results is distinct only by reason (ratione distinctum) and
follows only metaphysically (metaphysice . . . consequi), on the one hand,
from the case where what results follows from a true efficient causal action
(resultiam esse cum vera efficientia et actione) and thus is distinct in reality
from that from which it results (a parte rei distinctum ab eo a quo resultat),
on the other. Suárez notes that since in the former case there is “only a dis-
tinction among concepts,” there can be no efficient causation since “efficient
causality exists not among concepts but among things themselves” (DM
XVIII.3.10, I.618a).
I have had to admit that the claim that impenetrability involves a kind of
efficient causality of quantity is underdeveloped in Suárez’s writings.61 Even
so, I think that he is deeply committed to such a claim. For Suárez is con-
cerned to emphasize that the possession of quantity does not require that
something actually repel other quantified parts, since “the effect can be
impeded by God’s absolute power, maintaining its formal effect, but in ap-
titude [aptitudine]” (DM XL.4.16, II.547b). The precision concerning God’s
absolute power is required by the implication of the doctrine of the Eucharist
that Christ’s body is present with its quantity in the place of the Eucharistic
host, even though it does not actually repel other parts from that place. If im-
penetrability were simply a logical consequence of quantity, then by Suárez’s
own lights not even God could conserve Christ’s quantified body in the same
place as the quantity of the host. However, since he holds that actual impen-
etrability is only the effect of a causal power of quantity, which God can mi-
raculously impede, Suárez can—​and does—​conclude that the co-​presence of
the two quantities is possible.62
In fact, it seems that Suárez’s view of quantity is similar in crucial respects
to a view that Pasnau has attributed to Descartes. I have noted Pasnau’s claim
that the argument to More that impenetrability belongs “to the essence of
extension” fails because it precludes any sort of co-​location with bodies, in-
cluding that of God and created minds. Given these problems with holding

61 For the admission, see the remarks toward the end of §3.1.2.
62 This is one of Suárez’s reasons for rejecting the nominalist position that quantity requires the ac-
tual extension of integral parts; see DM XL.4.14, II.546b–​47a.
130 The Metaphysics of the Material World

that impenetrability is a logical consequence of extension, Pasnau concludes

that in order for Descartes’s argument against the interpenetration of ex-
tended parts “to have a chance of success,” the lack of interpenetration must
be understood to follow “from facts about bodies in the natural world,” and
in particular from the fact that our world is governed by the natural law that
quantity is conserved. Thus, Pasnau takes Descartes to hold that “it is logi-
cally possible for bodies to overlap, and the fact that they do not is a result of
the laws of nature rather than any conceptual point about extension” (Pasnau
2011: 319–​20).63
This argument requires the conceivability of a material substance that has
an extension that allows for an interpenetration of parts. Yet it is difficult
to see how Descartes could allow for this sort of conceivability. After all, he
simply identifies the “true extension” that constitutes the nature of body with
continuous quantity, and pace Pasnau, he indicates to More that the inability
to have penetrable parts is a logical consequence of the nature of quantified
extension. It seems that for Descartes, God could allow for interpenetration
only in the sense that he could have made to be false the necessary truth that
the nature of body consists in impenetrable extension.
In contrast, Suárez has the resources to conceive of an extension that does
not preclude an interpenetration of parts. For one thing, he allows for such an
extension in the natural case of sensible qualities, which have integral parts
that are co-​located with the integral parts of the material substance in which
they (indirectly) inhere.64 Even in the case of material substance itself, there
is Suárez’s concession to Ockham that such a substance could have an exten-
sion of integral parts without the presence of any accidental quantity.65 But
since it is quantity that is responsible for impenetrability, this sort of exten-
sion could not involve any resistance to the interpenetration of parts. Finally,
even when quantity does inhere in a material substance, Suárez insists that
the lack of interpenetration of parts is a causal effect that God can miracu-
lously impede, as he does in the case of the presence of Christ’s body in the
Eucharist.
It seems that Descartes can eliminate most of these weaker forms of
bodily extension. After all, he rejects scholastic real qualities, and so has no
reason to grant that the extension of the integral parts of these qualities can
be co-​located with the extension of the integral parts of material substance.

63 See the similar view in Anfray 2014: 53–​54.

64 See Figure 3.1.
65 See §3.1.2, after note 24.
 Metaphysical Themes from Suárez 131

Moreover, Descartes’s suggestion to More is that an “extension of sub-

stance” has (metaphysical or physical) impenetrability built into it, as it were,
thereby precluding the possibility that some part of matter could be extended
without occupying its place to the exclusion of other material parts. There
remains the theological case of the quantity of Christ’s body, but it seems that
Descartes simply has no way to allow that God could miraculously impede
the effects of the impenetrability of this body, consistent with his creation of
the necessary truth that the nature of body consists in quantified extension.66
Suárez wanted to maintain room for the view that the integral parts of a
body “could be penetrated by other bodies in the same location, just as much
as an angelic substance could” (DM XL.2.21, II.538a).67 But there is no room
in Descartes’s system for such a view. His remarks to More indicate that only
an immaterial substance could have a location without being impenetrable.
Suárez insisted that even a penetrable body could be distinguished from an
angel in virtue of the fact that it is composed of integral parts, something that
cannot be said of an indivisible angelic substance. For Descartes, however, all
that remains of body as Suárez conceives of it is impenetrable quantity and
its integral parts, and it is logically impossible for these parts to be penetrated
by other such parts: logically impossible, that is, given that impenetrability
is a logical consequence of quantity rather than—​as Suárez would have it—​
merely a causal consequence.
Even so, Descartes’s claim in Meditation V that he conceives of body in
terms of what “the common philosophers” call continuous quantity clearly
reveals some debt to scholasticism. More specifically, his suggestion that
quantity bears a special relation to impenetrability has a precedent in Suárez.
To be sure, neither Suárez nor any other scholastic could follow Descartes
in arguing that the nature of material substance consists entirely in quan-
tified extension. The analysis of material substance in terms of substantial
forms and real qualities was simply too entrenched a feature of scholasti-
cism to allow for this. Moreover, we have seen that Descartes does not offer
the specific account in Suárez of the relation of quantity to impenetrability.
Nonetheless, there remains in Descartes a remnant of the result in Suárez

66 In fact, Descartes either suggests that the quantity of Christ’s body as present in the Eucharist

simply is the quantity of the bread that has been made a part of that body through union with his soul
(as in his correspondence with Mesland: see February 9, 1645, AT IV.167–​69, and 1645/​1646, AT
IV.346–​48), or refrains from committing in writing to any philosophical explanation of this aspect of
the sacrament (as in his correspondence with Arnauld, June 4, 1648, AT V.194).
67 As indicated in §3.1.2, after note 28.
132 The Metaphysics of the Material World

that the quantified extension of bodies must be distinguished from the sort of
unquantified extension that pertains to God and created spiritual substances.

4.3. The Metaphysics of Surfaces

4.3.1. Descartes’s Modal Realism

Previously I noted Descartes’s appeal in his 1641 response to Hobbes to the

example of the relation of a surface to a flat body.68 The notion of a surface is
also central to Descartes’s attempt to accommodate the Catholic doctrine of
the Eucharist. According to the relevant portion of the doctrine, which we
have encountered several times already, the entire substance of the bread and
wine is converted into the substance of the body and blood of Jesus Christ,
“with only the species [specie] of the bread and wine remaining” (Denzinger
1963: 389). In his set of objections to the Meditations, Arnauld has this
particular aspect of the doctrine in mind when he expresses concern that
Descartes’s claim that there are no bodily “accidents, but only modes, which
cannot be understood, and indeed cannot exist, without some substance in
which they are present” is incompatible with the revealed truth that “when
the substance of the bread has been removed from the Eucharistic bread, the
accidents remain by themselves” (O IV, AT VII.248). In response, Descartes
attempts to address this concern by identifying the sensible species of the
Eucharistic bread with “the surface [superficie] that is common to the indi-
vidual particles of the bread and the bodies that surround them” (RO IV, AT
VII.251). Having identified the sensible species of the elements with their
surfaces, Descartes then insists that the latter are not specific to particular
bodies, and thus can continue to exist even when something has replaced
the bodily substances they originally contained. In this way, according to
Descartes, his physics is fully compatible with the Catholic doctrine of the
persistence of the sensible species in the Eucharist.69
In what follows, I consider separately two aspects of this account of
Eucharistic surfaces: first, the claim that surfaces are modes, and second, the
claim that they are something that can persist through substantial changes in
bodies. The first claim was immediately an issue, since the unnamed authors

68See §4.2.1, around note 11.

69For a helpful discussion of the exchange between Arnauld and Descartes on this issue, see
Menn 1995.
 Metaphysical Themes from Suárez 133

of Objections VI pressed Descartes to explain “how it can be said that [a sur-

face] is neither a part of the bodies that are perceived by the senses, nor a part
of the air and its vapors” (AT VII.417). This prompted Descartes to note that a
surface is “only a mode and not a part of a body” (tantum modus non . . . pars
corporis), and, moreover, that it is an “extremity” (extremum) that is the same
mode in both the contained and the containing body (RO VI, AT VII.433).
Descartes’s emphasis on the fact that surfaces are modes rather than parts
explains my characterization of him as a modal realist on this issue. The “re-
alism” here is to be understood in contrast to a more “nominalist” account of
surfaces.70 Descartes himself broaches this contrast when he observes in his
Replies to Objections VI that “all mathematicians and philosophers” have
held that surfaces are features distinct from body that lack depth. However,
he claims that there are two different ways in which they have considered
surfaces to lack depth. Whereas some hold that surfaces derive from a con-
sideration of a body in abstraction from its depth, without committing
themselves to the view that there is something in nature that lacks depth,
others hold that surfaces are modal features of bodies that in fact lack depth
(AT VII.433). It is clear that the former are concerned not to rule out the
nominalist position that surfaces and other indivisibles do not exist as real
features of reality over and above bodies and their three-​dimensional parts.
Descartes’s suggestion is that the main realist alternative involves the identi-
fication of the surface with a two-​dimensional bodily mode.
Perhaps the primary reason Descartes is so concerned to deny that the
Eucharistic surfaces are parts is that he takes any parts that compose an
extended substance to be themselves really distinct extended substances.
Indeed, in the Principles he offers as an example of a real distinction the fact
that every part of an extended substance “is really distinct from the other
parts of the same substance,” where for Descartes, of course, a real distinction
is one between distinct substances.71 In his Replies to Objections IV, Descartes
notes in response to Arnauld that the supposition of real accidents creates
problems for the doctrine of the Eucharist insofar as it commits one to the
view that “the whole substance of the bread changes but nevertheless a part
of that substance called a real accident remains,” something that “certainly

70 On the medieval nominalist account of the indivisibles, including surfaces, see §3.3.1.
71 PP I.60, AT VIIIA.28. In §5.1, I defend further the claim that Descartes is a “pluralist” with
respect to extended substances, as opposed to a “monist” who holds that there is only one such
substance.
134 The Metaphysics of the Material World

Surface Cause of Sensations

Mode of

Substantial Part of Matter

Figure 4.1 Descartes on surfaces.

involves a conceptual contradiction” (AT VII.253–​54).72 If Descartes held

that Eucharistic surfaces are parts, he would be committed to the conclusion
that something of the substances of the bread and wine remains after con-
secration, and thus to the same sort of conceptual contradiction.73 Yet if the
surfaces are merely modes, as Descartes repeatedly insists they are, there is
no such commitment.
One interesting feature of Descartes’s modal realism concerning surfaces
is its implication that modes can be causally efficacious. This commitment
derives from his insistence to Arnauld, in Replies to Objections IV, that
surfaces are the sole aspects of body that can cause our sensations insofar as
“contact with an object takes place only at the surface, and nothing can have
an effect on any of our senses except through contact, as not just I but all
philosophers, including even Aristotle, maintain.” Thus, in the Eucharist the
elements “are perceived by the senses only insofar as the surface of the bread
or wine is in contact with our sense organs, either immediately, or by way of
the air or other bodies, as I maintain” (AT VII.249).74
For Descartes, then, we have something like the situation indicated
in Figure 4.1. Descartes’s insistence that modal surfaces are true causes

72 Mersenne had left this attack on the notion of real accidents out of the first (1641) edition of the

Meditations, but Descartes reinserted it into the second (1642) edition of this text.
73 Of course, since Suárez allowed that there are res that are not substances, he is not committed to

this result.
74 Incidentally, this passage gives some reason to question the view in the literature that Descartes

accepted a kind of occasionalism with respect to body–​body interactions. For a critical examina-
tion of this view that emphasizes Descartes’s position that bodily forces are particular causes of
changes in motion rather than his position that bodily surfaces are causally efficacious, see Schmaltz
2017: 167–​72.
 Metaphysical Themes from Suárez 135

Table 4.1 Suárezian and Cartesian Modes

Suárez Descartes

Inseparable from object modified Y Y

Mode of inherence Y N
Modes of modes N Y
Source of causal activity N Y

contrasts with a view in Suárez that precludes the causal efficacy of modes
in general. As Suárez defines it, “a cause is a principle that per se inflows
being into another” (causa est Principium per se influens esse in aliud) (DM
XII.2.4, I.384b–​385a).75 In order to “inflow being” into another, a cause
must have its own being to give. But we have seen that Suárez has no room
for modifications of modes, given his view that modes lack their own inde-
pendent reality. So also, then, modes are incapable of inflowing their being
into another. This explains why Suárez claims in the Disputationes that
among the items in the accidental categories, only those items that have their
own being as “real accidents”—​and so are really and not merely modally dis-
tinct from the substances in which they inhere—​can be principles of activity.
This point even applies to items in the category of action, which count as
modes.76 Suárez insists that any action consists merely “in the causality of the
cause,” and so presupposes a distinct principle of the action (DM XVIII.4.5,
I.625a). He also dismisses other modes as candidates for principles of action,
including shape, local motion, and intrinsic position (ubi): the very modes—​
note—​that are so prominent in causal explanations of material interactions
in the “new philosophy” of Descartes!77
We are in a position to tally the differences between Suárezian and
Cartesian modes (see Table 4.1). I have noted that Suárez, unlike Descartes,
posits modes of inherence. Descartes’s response to Hobbes also indicates that
he holds, contrary to Suárez, that modes have sufficient reality to serve as
subjects for other modes. Now we can add that Descartes differs from Suárez

75 In this text, Suárez contrasts his definition with the definition of a cause as something on which

an effect depends per se, the latter of which he takes to be inadequate insofar as the causality of an
effect can depend on a mere ens rationis wholly devoid of being, such as a privation.
76 As indicated in the discussion of the category of action in DM XLVIII.2.18, II.878b–​879a.
77 See DM XVIII.4.5–​9, I.625a–​26b. Suárez is concerned here with the question of whether modes

can be true efficient causes. However, he also argues for similar reasons that modes cannot be acci-
dental formal causes either; see DM XVI.1.21–​23, I.573a–​574a.
136 The Metaphysics of the Material World

in allowing for the possibility that modes are sources of causal activity.78 Of
course, Descartes refrained from attributing to his modes the sort of sep-
arability that Suárez took to be distinctive of real accidents. Nonetheless,
Descartes’s modes have a sort of reality that places them between Suárezian
modes and real accidents.
Descartes also differed from Suárez in holding that surfaces are modes,
as distinct from res-​like entities that, like parts, are a kind of “constituent”
of bodies but that, unlike parts, do not compose bodies. We have seen that
Suárez attempted to explain the production of surfaces and other indivisibles
by appealing to the fact that such entities “naturally result” from matter.79
However, I have noted that he also admitted the possibility of a need to appeal
as well to a kind of divine “concreation” that accompanies this production.80
Had Descartes allowed that surfaces were res, he also would have needed
to invoke divine creation, though for special reasons. This is clear from his
claim in a letter to Regius that “it is inconceivable that a substance should
come into existence without being created de novo by God” (January 1642,
AT 3: 505).81 Since he held that all (and only) res are substances, it would
follow from the fact that surfaces are res that they also would need to be cre-
ated de novo by God when they come into existence.
Nevertheless, Descartes’s modal realism allows him to avoid this sort of
appeal to divine creation. According to this view, what are produced with
changes in surfaces are not new res, but rather new modal determinations
of res. In this sense modal realism is an advance over Suárez’s own mod-
erate realism. I do not think that Descartes himself was aware of this advance
over Suárez: in contrast to the case of the theory of distinctions, there is no
evidence that Descartes even encountered the treatment of surfaces in the
Disputationes or, if he did, that he comprehended its distinctive features.82
This leads me to suspect that Descartes derived his modal account of surfaces
by applying his notion of a mode—​which he later refined with the help of
Suárez’s modal distinction—​to the common Aristotelian view of surfaces as
two-​dimensional boundaries of continuous parts.

78 As we will discover in §6.2, in both these respects Spinoza’s conception of modes is more

Cartesian than Suárezian.

79 See §3.3.2, at note 87.
80 See §3.3.2, after note 89.
81 See the further discussion of this passage in c
­ hapter 5, note 28.
82 As I have noted, the first and only reference we have in Descartes to Suárez is from his response

to Arnauld’s objections to the Meditations, which response includes as well his appeal to surfaces in
the explanation of the Eucharist.
 Metaphysical Themes from Suárez 137

4.3.2. The Problem of Persistence

Recall that Descartes appealed to surfaces in order to establish the persist-

ence of the Eucharistic species. However, his modal realist account does
not suffice to establish this result. In addition to claiming that surfaces are
modes rather than substances, he needs to show that they are a special kind
of mode that can survive the substantial change produced by consecration.
It is to establish this additional point that Descartes appeals to the fact that
surfaces belong neither to the Eucharistic elements nor to the surrounding
air, but rather are common to both of them. Moreover, he emphasizes that
the surfaces do not depend for their existence on the particular bodies they
limit, but can belong to any bodies with similar dimensions.83
Descartes’s claim that surfaces are modes common to different bodies
would appear to be problematic insofar as it requires “straddling modes” that
simultaneously modify distinct substances.84 I indicated previously that it
would be impossible for Suárez to hold that there could be a single mode of
distinct substances, given that the mode receives its identity from the sub-
stance it modifies.85 Yet it seems that the same consideration blocks the ad-
mission of straddling modes in Descartes. We have seen his conclusion in
the Principles that the distinction of a mode of one substance from a mode of
another substance must be real rather than modal (PP I.61, AT VII.30). Thus,
a straddling mode would have to be at the same time identical to and really
distinct from itself, not exactly a welcome consequence.
There is the solution that I offered earlier on Suárez’s behalf, namely, that
the surface is a mode not of the adjacent parts, but rather of the whole com-
posed of those parts. In this case the mode could be identified with a single
subject. Likewise, it might seem to be an option for Descartes to hold that
the common surface is a mode only of the whole composed of the adjacent
parts. Indeed, it might even be thought that Descartes himself suggests such
a view when he insists that there is just one mode in this case, as opposed, for
instance, to two different spatially coincident modes of the parts.86

83 Cf. RO IV, AT VII.251, and RO VI, AT VII.433–​34.

84 I borrow the term “straddling mode” from Hoffman (2009b: 108), who defines it as “a mode
(token) [that] can simultaneously be a mode of two substances.” Contrary to what I argue here,
Hoffman thinks there is room in Descartes’s system for straddling modes so understood.
85 See §3.3.3.
86 The contrasting position is similar to the realist view indicated in Varzi 2013, according to

which there are two boundaries of the adjacent parts that “coincide spatially without overlapping
mereologically.” Varzi attributes such a realist view to Suárez, though for reasons indicated in
­chapter 3, note 86, such an attribution can be challenged.
138 The Metaphysics of the Material World

Admittedly, it is not clear that the view that the Eucharistic elements
share a common surface with the surrounding air is something to which
Descartes is entitled.87 A central difficulty derives from the way in which
Descartes conceives of the relation between the two. According to Descartes,
air is a kind of fluid that is in constant motion with respect to the bodies it
surrounds.88 Yet he defines motion as “the transference [translationem] of one
part of matter, or one body, from the vicinity of those bodies that are immedi-
ately contiguous and considered as if at rest, to the vicinity of others” (PP II.25,
AT VIIIA.53). To share a boundary, it seems, parts must at least be at rest rel-
ative to each other; that is to say, it must not be the case that any is transferred
from the vicinity of the others. The problem is that particles of air are contin-
ually transferred from the vicinity of the Eucharistic elements.
Even if we waive this problem, and thus grant Descartes his Eucharistic
surfaces, there remains his claim that the very same surfaces can remain even
after the substances they previously limited have been replaced by different
substances. Descartes attempts to defend this claim in a 1645 letter to the
Jesuit Denis Mesland, in which he notes that the surface common to the air
and the Eucharistic bread “changes neither with the one nor with the other,
but only with the shape of the dimensions that separate one from the other.”
After consecration, when the body of Christ replaces the bread and new air
takes the place of the old, the surface “remains the same in number [eadem
numero] as it was when between the other air and the bread, because its nu-
merical identity does not depend on the identity of the bodies in which it
exists, but only on the identity or resemblance [l’identité ou resemblance] of
the dimensions” (February 9, 1645, AT IV.164–​65). Since the surfaces are
identified only with the dimensions of objects and not with the objects them-
selves, they can survive the replacement of certain objects with others that
have similar dimensions. Though these dimensions must be modes of some
body or other, Descartes’s insistence here is that they are not tied to particular
bodies.
The denial that surfaces are essentially dependent on particular bodies is
not restricted to Descartes’s discussion of the Eucharist. It is important also
for the general account of “place” (locus) that he provides in the Principles.
In this text he distinguishes between “internal” and “external” place. In

87 Thanks to Shane Duarte for drawing my attention to this point.

88 As I indicate later, this is how Descartes conceives of the relation of “celestial matter” to the earth
it surrounds.
 Metaphysical Themes from Suárez 139

considering internal place, Descartes further distinguishes between the

three-​dimensional extension of the internal place insofar as it is related to
space and that extension insofar as it is related to a particular body. When it
is referred to space,

we attribute to the extension only a generic unity [unitatem . . . genericam],

so that when a new body occupies that space, the extension of the space is
reckoned not to change, but rather to remain one and the same, so long as
it retains the same size and shape and keeps the same position relative to
certain external bodies that we use to determine that space. (PP II.12, AT
VIIIA.46).

Internal place considered as having a merely “generic unity” counts as a spe-

cies of “extension considered in general” (extensio consideratur in genere) (PP
II.12, AT VIIIA.46), which in Descartes’s view is a mere mode of thinking
under which particular created things are conceived, and not something that
exists external to mind. In contrast, when it is referred to body, internal place
is “extension as something singular,” which we consider “as changing when-
ever there is a new body” (PP II.10, AT VIIIA.45). Thus, the motionless in-
ternal place that several bodies can occupy is a mere abstraction, whereas the
internal place that moves with the particular body with which it is identified
is a concrete feature of reality.
Both kinds of internal place are contrasted with external place, defined
as “the surface [superficie] immediately surrounding what is in the place,”
which is “no more than a mode.” The basic difference here is that the ex-
ternal place is a two-​dimensional boundary rather than a three-​dimensional
volume. However, external place is further distinguished from the internal
place referred to a body insofar as it does not belong to a particular body, but
“is always supposed to be the same, when it retains the same size and shape”
(PP II.15, AT VIIIA.48).
In terms of Descartes’s theory of distinctions, it might seem that the sur-
face that he posits in the case of the Eucharist is really distinct from partic-
ular bodies. Indeed, we have seen that Suaréz himself affirmed this sort of
distinction between a limiting surface and the parts it limits. This view was
open to him insofar as he identified the surface with a kind of res rather than
with a mode. However, Descartes is clear that the surface is supposed to be
only a mode. Since his own view (in line with that of Suárez, as indicated
in Table 4.1) requires that a mode cannot be conceived—​and so cannot
140 The Metaphysics of the Material World

exist—​apart from the particular object it modifies, it appears that Descartes

simply cannot allow that a surface is really distinct from the particular body
it limits.89
It may be that Descartes could allow for some such distinction insofar as
he conceives of surfaces as akin to internal place as referred to space, that is,
to something that different bodies can possess while it remains the same. But
this is possible for the internal place only because it is a mere abstraction that
has only a “generic unity.” Likewise, it seems that the surface could have an
identity detached from particular bodies only insofar as it is an abstraction
and not a concrete mode that is inseparable from the particular subject it
modifies. Here it is significant that Descarters tells Mesland that the iden-
tity of surfaces depends only on the “identity or resemblance” of the relevant
dimensions. The resemblance of the three-​dimensional extension that dif-
ferent bodies occupy allows us to regard an abstracted internal place as the
same, but it cannot allow us to hold that the very same concrete extension
remains. Likewise, the resemblance of the two dimensions that come to limit
different bodies allows us to regard a surface as the same, but it cannot allow
us to conclude that the very same concrete mode is present. It may be that re-
semblance is all that is needed to “speak with the vulgar” in claiming that the
Eucharistic surfaces persist after consecration. However, even on Descartes’s
own terms resemblance is insufficient for the strict identity of the surfaces as
concrete modes.90
It could perhaps be suggested on Descartes’s behalf that it suffices for
practical purposes to be able to speak as if the same surfaces persist, just as
it so suffices to be able to speak as if different bodies can occupy the same
space. However, there is some question whether Descartes himself would

89 There is one apparent counter-​example from Replies to Objections IV, where Descartes tells

Arnauld that the claim that modes are unintelligible apart from some substance to inhere in “should
not be taken to imply any denial that they can be separated from a substance by the power of God;
for I firmly insist and believe that many things can be brought about by God that we are incapable of
understanding” (AT VII.249). But there is reason to think he has in mind here the power of God to
make false the eternal truth that modes are inseparable from the substances they modify. I think we
have reason to read in a similar way Descartes’s claim in later correspondence with Arnauld that we
should not say that God cannot create a vacuum, even though we conceive a vacuum to be impossible
(July 29, 1648, AT V.223–​24). Moreover, one reason Descartes identifies the Eucharistic species with
surfaces is because it purportedly is not inconceivable that they persist through substantial change.
90 Cf. the view in Lennon 2007 that Descartes’s account of Eucharistic surfaces suggests that a

modal change is a change “solely in our conception of things” (34), and thus that “the tendency in
Descartes . . . is to collapse the distinction between the rational and modal distinctions” (35n24).
My own view is that though Descartes’s account of surface or external place seems to imply that this
entity is only a “mode of thinking” and not a concrete mode, this is an implication he himself is com-
mitted to rejecting. For one thing, such an implication would undermine the reality of persisting
Eucharistic species, which Descartes invoked surfaces to preserve in the first place.
 Metaphysical Themes from Suárez 141

be comfortable with saving the Eucharistic phenomena in this manner. An

interesting point of comparison is with his attitude toward another theolog-
ically charged issue, namely, the Copernican view that the earth orbits the
sun. The 1633 condemnation of Galileo by the Roman curia for defending
this view had prompted Descartes to suppress the publication of his Le
Monde, which also suggests a Copernican cosmology. When Descartes
later attempts in his Principles to reconcile his views with the Church’s re-
jection of the motion of the earth, he does not merely claim that he is able
to speak as if the earth does not move. Rather, the argument in that text is
that his own definition of motion requires that the earth literally does not
move. As we have seen, Descartes defines motion as the transference of one
part of matter from the vicinity of others. He insists that it follows from this
definition that

no movement, strictly speaking, is found in the earth or even the other

planets; because they are not transferred [transferuntur] from the vicinity
of the parts of the heaven immediately contiguous to them, inasmuch as
these parts of the heaven are considered as immobile. For this would re-
quire the separation of all together, which does not happen; but because the
celestial matter is fluid, now some of the particles, now others, are removed
from the planet to which it is contiguous, and this by a motion that must be
attributed to them, and not to the planet. (PP III.28, AT VIIIA.90).

It is questionable that Descartes can consistently maintain that the earth is

motionless in this sense. Particularly problematic here is his explanation of
the tides in terms of the faster speed of the surrounding vortex, which seems
to involve a separation of the entire contiguous celestial matter from the
earth.91 Even so, the official line in Descartes is that the earth lacks motion
strictly speaking, and not in some other diminished sense.
Admittedly, there is a complication buried in the qualification that mo-
tion is transference from other immediately contiguous bodies consid-
ered as if at rest (tanquam quiescentia spectantur). In the Principles, this
qualification is explained by the fact that transference is always mutual, as
shown by the fact that when one body is transferred from the vicinity of
another, the latter is transferred from the vicinity of the former as well.
But Descartes allows that particles of the air surrounding the earth are

91 See the discussion of this point in Schmaltz 2015a.

142 The Metaphysics of the Material World

constantly transferred from its vicinity (PP III.28, AT VIIIA.90). Thus,

strictly speaking, the earth is in motion with respect to those particles.
However, Descartes insists that the motion “should be attributed solely to
the particles, and not to the planet” (AT VIIIA.91). He is drawing here on
the earlier claim in the Principles that since it “would clash too much with
our ordinary way of speaking” to say that the earth moves when parts of it
are contiguous with other parts transferred from their vicinity, we should
say only that the transferred parts move, and not the earth (PP II.30, AT
VIIIA.56). So Descartes could also say, perhaps, that since it would clash
too much with our ordinary way of speaking to say that any changes in
bodies bring about new surfaces, we should say instead that the same
surfaces persist through such changes.
Perhaps, though arguably there is an important difference between the two
cases. Descartes takes his definition of motion to permit him to conclude
that there is motion only when one part is transferred from the vicinity of all
other parts contiguous to it (as indicated in PP III.28, AT VIIIA.90). Insofar
as the earth is not transferred in this way from what surrounds it, the result
is not merely that we can consider that there is no motion. Rather, in this
case there really is no motion, properly understood. In contrast, it seems that
Descartes is entitled to say only that we can conceive of the surfaces as if they
persist in the Eucharist, insofar as his own modal realism precludes the fur-
ther claim that the concrete boundaries themselves persist through substan-
tial change.
In the first chapter we encountered the suggestion in Aristotle that though
certain accidents, such as color, need to inhere in some body, they need not
inhere in a particular body.92 If Descartes could attribute the same status to
surfaces, he would have a solution to the problem of the persistence of spe-
cies in the Eucharist. Unfortunately, though, Descartes was too far removed
from such a view of inhering accidents to avail himself of it. What stands
between him and Aristotle on this point is the Suárezian result in his system
that modes are inseparable from the particular objects they modify (the sole
point of agreement in Table 4.1). Thus, the Suárezian context of Descartes’s
modal realism allows us to appreciate its real limitations with respect to his
particular application of this view to the Eucharist. By the same token, how-
ever, the deficiencies of Suárez’s moderate realism indicated in the previous
chapter allow us to appreciate the relative strengths of Descartes’s modal

92 See §1.2.1, after note 24.

 Metaphysical Themes from Suárez 143

realism.93 It is Descartes rather than Suárez who conceives of surfaces as

two-​dimensional modes of three-​dimensional objects. In this way Descartes
can be seen as advancing Suárez’s own project of integrating the category of
mode, conceived in terms of a new modal distinction, into an account of the
metaphysics of the material world.94

93 See §3.3.2. Stephan Schmid has noted to me the irony that whereas Suárez had reason to adopt

Descartes’s modal realist conception of surfaces, Descartes’s account of the Eucharist gave him reason
to adopt Suárez’s moderate realist conception.
94 My discussion in §4.3, as well as the corresponding discussion of Suárez in §3.3, incorporates

material published in Schmaltz 2019.

 5
Material Pluralism and Ordinary Bodies

In the response to Spinoza’s identification of God with extended substance

that we considered in the first chapter, Bayle argues that on the conception
of extension in Descartes that Spinoza himself accepts, the parts of extended
substance are distinct substances. Thus, the idea of the Spinozistic God would
be the idea “of a composite being, that of a collection of several substances”
(DHC, “Spinoza,” rem. N, IV.260a).1 Bayle’s assumption here is that Descartes
is committed to a “pluralist” view of material substance, according to which
the material world is composed of many—​indeed, given the essential di-
visibility of extension, “indefinitely” many—​distinct extended substances.2
However, this assumption is controversial; there is a reading of Descartes on
which he holds that there is only one material substance, namely, the realm
of extension as a whole.3 Obviously such a “monistic” reading of Descartes
significantly compromises the argument in Bayle against Spinoza’s material
monism.
One passage that has become central to the debate over monist and plu-
ralist interpretations of Cartesian material substance is from the Synopsis
of the Meditations, in which Descartes argues that since “body taken in ge-
neral” is a substance, and since all substances are “by their nature incorrupt-
ible,” this sort of body is incorruptible as well (AT VII.13–​14).4 The central
question concerning this passage has become whether for Descartes body-​
taken-​in-​general (as I call it) is a single substance, as on the monist reading,
or whether it is composed of parts that are really distinct from it, as the plu-
ralist reading requires.

1 See the discussion of Bayle’s argument in §1.1.2.

2 For the view in the literature that Descartes himself accepts this sort of pluralism, see Stuart 1999;
Slowik 2001; Normore 2008; Schmaltz 2009; and Kaufman 2014. In §5.1.1, I consider a French ver-
sion of this reading in Laporte 1950.
3 For different versions of this interpretation in the recent Anglophone literature, see Sowaal 2004;

Secada 2006; Lennon 2007; Chappell 2008; and Smith and Nelson 2010. In §5.1.1, I consider a French
version of this reading in Gueroult 1953 and 1968.
4 The following discussion in this chapter has been adapted from Schmaltz 2018.

The Metaphysics of the Material World. Tad M. Schmaltz, Oxford University Press (2020).
© Oxford University Press.
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190070229.001.0001
 Material Pluralism and Ordinary Bodies 145

In what follows, I attempt to support Bayle’s understanding of Descartes

by defending a pluralist reading of this passage that emphasizes Descartes’s
consistent claim that extended substance is divisible by its very nature into
really distinct parts. But even if the issue is resolved in favor of pluralism,
questions remain concerning the metaphysical implications of the Synopsis
Passage (as I call it) for an account of the material world. For instance, there
is the question of why Descartes holds in this passage that both the nature of
created substance in general and the particular substantial nature of body-​
taken-​ in-​
general require incorruptibility. Moreover, there are questions
about how precisely body-​taken-​in-​general is related to the human body, on
the one hand, and to ordinary material objects other than human bodies, on
the other.
In order to address these questions, I begin in §5.1 with a consideration
of the Synopsis Passage that focuses on Descartes’s notion of body-​taken-​
in-​general. Here I offer some initial reasons for favoring a pluralist under-
standing of this notion over a monist understanding. One of these reasons
is suggested by the famous consideration in Meditation II of our knowledge
of the nature of a particular piece of wax. I also compare the account in the
Synopsis of body-​taken-​in-​general to two other accounts of body or exten-
sion “in general” that Descartes offers elsewhere. I argue that the Synopsis
Passage is distinctive in suggesting that body-​taken-​in-​general is to be iden-
tified either with indefinitely extended matter or with any concrete part of
that matter that is individuated by its particular size alone.
In §5.2, I attempt to fill out Descartes’s argument in the Synopsis from
the premise that bodies-​taken-​in-​general are substances to the conclusion
that they are incorruptible. In order to fully understand this argument, we
must see why Descartes thinks that it follows from the nature of created
substance as such that bodies-​taken-​in-​general are incorruptible. A clue is
provided by Descartes’s account of substance in terms of its “principal at-
tribute.” Next I consider a particular problem for Descartes’s pluralism that
is broached by an argument in Spinoza that proceeds from the Cartesian re-
jection of the possibility of a vacuum in nature to a monistic account of ex-
tended substance. This argument draws attention to the fact that Descartes’s
official account of what is required for a “real distinction” among substances
conflicts with the implication of his system that the different parts of matter
are essentially interdependent. Though there remain ways to save Descartes’s
pluralism, there is nonetheless reason to question the assumption in the
146 The Metaphysics of the Material World

Synopsis Passage that bodies-​taken-​in-​general are substances in the very

same sense that human minds are.
In §5.3, I turn from bodies-​taken-​in-​general to the cases of the human
body and of ordinary non-​human bodies. The human body features promi-
nently in the Synopsis Passage. But though the focus in this passage is on the
corruptibility of the human body, Descartes emphasizes elsewhere that this
body is special insofar as it can survive changes in its material constitution in
virtue of its union with the human mind. I attempt to understand his account
of this special feature of the human body in terms of the view in Meditation
VI that there are two different senses of “nature” that apply to bodies. Finally,
I consider the suggestion in Descartes that there is room at a fundamental
metaphysical level for ordinary material objects beyond the human body.
I address the question of whether there is any hope of providing a metaphys-
ically robust defense of this suggestion on Descartes’s behalf. Bayle’s treat-
ment of Descartes assumes a positive answer to this question. However,
I take Descartes’s own metaphysics of the material world to provide no basis
for positing as distinct features of reality ordinary objects other than human
bodies that we take to be persisting subjects of changing bodily modes.

5.1. The Synopsis and Bodies-​Taken-​in-​General

5.1.1. The Synopsis Passage and the Piece of Wax

In his Synopsis, Descartes deviates at one important point from his plan
to provide a summary of his claims in the Meditations. In particular, in the
course of his summary of Meditation II, he notes that he did not pursue the
topic of the immortality of the human soul in the Meditations not only be-
cause the arguments in the Meditations suffice to show “that the decay of
the body does not imply the destruction of the mind,” but also because “the
premises that lead to the conclusion that the soul is immortal depend on an
account of the whole of physics.” He then offers a sketch of an argument for
this conclusion in the Synopsis Passage, which I quote at length:

First, [it is necessary to know] that absolutely all substances [omnes omnino
substantias], or things that must be created by God to exist, are by their
nature incorruptible, and cannot cease to be unless they are reduced to
nothing by God’s denying his concourse [concursum suum] to them; and
 Material Pluralism and Ordinary Bodies 147

then to recognize that body as something taken in general [corpus quidem

in genere sumptum] is substance, so that it too never perishes. But the
human body, in so far as it differs from other bodies, is constituted of a
certain configuration of limbs and other accidents of this sort; whereas the
human mind does not consist of any accidents in this way, but is a pure
substance [puram esse substantiam]: and thus even if all of its accidents
change, so that it understands different things, wills otherwise, senses oth-
erwise, etc., it does not therefore become a different mind; whereas the
human body is something other from the fact alone that the shape of some
of its parts changes: from which it follows that whereas the body can easily
perish, the mind is immortal by its nature. (AT VII.13–​14)

We can divide the argument into the following parts: (1) The claim that “ab-
solutely all” created substances are incorruptible; (2) the claim that body-​
taken-​in-​general is a created substance, and so also never perishes; (3) the
assertion of a contrast between the human body, which is constituted of var-
ious accidents, and the human mind, which does not depend on accidents
in the same way; and (4) the conclusion that though the human body can
“easily perish” through certain changes in its accidents, the human mind is
immortal “by its nature.”
I will deal with (1), (3), and (4) in later sections.5 For the moment, I want
to linger over (2), and in particular over the central notion of body-​taken-​
in-​general.6 I have indicated that there are competing monist and pluralist
interpretations of this notion. We can begin with a classic version of the
monist interpretation in Descartes selon l’ordre des raisons, Martial Gueroult’s
commentary on the Meditations. With respect to the Synopsis Passage,
Gueroult insists in his text that, according to Descartes,

there are no true individual extended substances, but only bodies that behave
as substances; these bodies, being only modes, count only as specifications;
they are modes of extension variously extended. (1953: I.116–​17)

The claim that particular bodies “behave as” substances is explained by

the fact that the parts seem to be independent of each other, and so seem

5 In particular, I discuss issues relating to (1) in §5.2.1, and issues relating to (3) and (4) in §5.3.1.
6 I discuss the portion of (2) relating to the claim that body-​taken-​in-​general never perishes in
§5.2.1.
148 The Metaphysics of the Material World

to satisfy the requirement for a “real distinction” among substances.7 But

what Gueroult emphasizes here is that the bodies cannot really be distinct
substances since they are simply various ways in which matter is extended,
that is to say, they are nothing other than modes of the one extended sub-
stance in the universe.
In support of the conclusion that the body-​ taken-​ in-​
general of the
Synopsis Passage cannot be plural, Gueroult cites an important passage from
a letter from Descartes to Mesland, to which we will return frequently. In this
letter (which I call the Mesland Letter), Descartes refers to “a body in general”
(un corps en général) as “a determined part of matter, and together the quan-
tity of which the universe is composed” (February 9, 1645, AT IV.166). As
I indicate in more detail in §5.2, the Mesland Letter indicates clearly that a
body in general, as a determined-​part-​of-​matter, cannot survive any change
in its material composition. As Gueroult argues, the result here is that partic-
ular parts of matter “have only a precarious unity, subjected to a change of its
parts” (Gueroult 1953: I.116). But then, it seems, only matter as a whole, and
not any particular part of it, can be identified with the incorruptible body-​
taken-​in-​general of the Synopsis Passage.
In the course of his discussion, Gueroult emphasizes his opposition to a
reading of the Synopsis Passage in the earlier work of Jean Laporte (Gueroult
1953: I.116–​17). According to the relevant view in Laporte:

The body taken in general that is conserved designates, as Descartes

indicates, any determined portion of matter, insofar as it is matter, and inde-
pendent of the special organization conferred on it by the motions holding
its parts together. In this sense, a stone, or a separated hand must be qual-
ified as substances; and certainly the quantity of matter of which they are
formed never perishes, no more than the total quantity of matter that is the
universe and that is made up of the sum of all of its parts. (1950: 188–​89)

There is the suggestion here that both objects such as a stone or separated
hand and the quantity that composes them count as substances for Descartes;
I will address this point in §5.3.2. But the basic contrast here is between the
monist view in Gueroult that Descartes identifies particular bodies with
modal specifications of matter that merely can be considered as substances,

7 For more on the real distinction in Descartes, see §5.2.2 along with the relevant background

in §4.1.
 Material Pluralism and Ordinary Bodies 149

on the one hand, and the pluralist view in Laporte that Descartes identifies
these bodies with determined portions of matter that are themselves genuine
substances, on the other.
The reference in the original Latin text of the Synopsis Passage to corpus
quidem in genere sumptum does not seem, by itself, to settle this interpretive
dispute. Since Latin lacks definite or indefinite articles, this phrase could be
taken to refer either to the (one) body-​taken-​in-​general, in line with a monist
reading, or to a (particular) body-​taken-​in-​general, in line with a pluralist
reading. We must look elsewhere for resolution.8
One important consideration that seems to favor Laporte’s pluralist in-
terpretation is raised in the Synopsis itself just prior to our target passage,
where Descartes contrasts the fact that “we think of no body except as divis-
ible” with the fact that we can think of “no mind except as indivisible” (AT
VII.13). Descartes indicates elsewhere that the divisibility of bodies consists
in the possibility of division without limit (or “indefinitely”) into distinct
substances. Indeed, his argument against indivisible atoms depends on the
claim that every corporeal substance is divisible into parts that are themselves
distinct corporeal substances. Earlier I cited Descartes’s claim in a letter to
Gibieuf that it follows from the divisibility of matter that he can “consider
the two halves of a part of matter, however small it may be, as two complete
substances” (AT III.477).9 The suggestion here is that the parts of matter—​
that is to say, of extended substance—​are to be conceived not as modes of
that extension, but rather as really distinct substantial parts that compose it.
The proposal that Descartes takes spatial parts to be substances rather than
modes finds further support in his account of surfaces, which we considered
in the previous chapter.10 Recall that in defense of his “modal realist” account
of surfaces, Descartes emphasizes the distinction of the two-​dimensional
modes of a body from its three-​dimensional parts. The clear indication here
is that the parts are not themselves modes, but rather compose the substance
of the body. Given this indication, it seems that—​pace Gueroult—​Descartes
cannot accept the view that particular parts of matter are modes of the one
extended substance.11

8 I owe consideration of this point to discussion with Dan Garber, though he might be more san-

guine than I am about the possibility of a case for pluralism that rests on linguistic considerations
regarding the Latin text of the Synopsis Passage.
9 See §4.2.2, after note 60. There I distinguish this claim from Suárez’s view that the parts of con-

tinuous extension are only incomplete res.

10 See §4.3.1.
11 For other passages from Descartes that support of a pluralist reading, see Kaufman 2014.
150 The Metaphysics of the Material World

We still have the passage from the Mesland Letter, which may seem to favor
Gueroult’s monistic interpretation. Moreover, Gueroult and his defenders
are not without responses to the textual evidence that appears to favor plu-
ralism. For instance, I have indicated that Gueroult himself understands
Descartes’s application of the real distinction to bodies to show only that we
can consider these bodies as if they are really distinct substances. The fact
that Descartes explicitly distinguishes parts from modes is perhaps more
problematic for Gueroult’s monism, though even here it might be open to
Gueroult to claim that this distinction concerns merely the difference be-
tween modal determinations of matter that are two-​dimensional and those
determinations of that matter that are three-​dimensional.12 It may well be
that there is no evidence that can decide the issue for pluralism in any abso-
lutely definitive way.
Nonetheless, I do think there is one further piece of evidence for a plu-
ralist reading of the Synopsis Passage that has not received the attention it
deserves. As previously indicated, this evidence concerns the relation of this
passage to the discussion of the piece of wax in Meditation II.13 It must be
remembered that the Synopsis Passage is from a summary of the views in
this particular Meditation. And the views in this text that seem most directly
connected to the notion in the Synopsis of body-​taken-​in-​general are those
that concern “this wax” (hanc ceram) (AT VII.30). Recall that toward the
end of Meditation II, Descartes attempts to illustrate the fact that we do not
know the nature of bodies through sensation or imagination by considering
what we can know about a particular piece of wax. He initially claims that
he prefers to talk about this particular body rather than what is common to
bodies (quidem corpora in communi) since “general perceptions of them are
apt to be confused” (AT VII.30). Insofar as it is to be identified with what
is common to bodies, a body-​taken-​in-​general would seem to be distinct
from this particular wax. However, in Meditation II Descartes is concerned

12 In his later development of his monist interpretation of Descartes, Gueroult distinguishes be-

tween broader and narrower senses of “mode.” Though what inheres in a subject is a mode in a
narrower sense, anything that is causally dependent on some other created thing for its existence is a
mode in a broader sense (Gueroult 1968: 540–​42). My suggestion on Gueroult’s behalf is that whereas
three-​dimensional parts of matter are not modes in a narrower sense since they do not inhere in a
subject in the way two-​dimensional modes do, they nonetheless are modes in a broader sense since
they are not causally independent of any other created substance.
13 I myself ignored this evidence until Domenico Collacciani recently brought it to my attention;

I owe the discussion in the remainder of this section to his suggestion of the importance in this con-
text of the wax discussion. However, I do not know whether he would endorse the specific account
I offer here of the relation of this discussion to the Synopsis Passage.
 Material Pluralism and Ordinary Bodies 151

to distinguish an abstract consideration of bodies from our initial consider-

ation of a concrete piece of wax by means of the senses. We will discover that
there is in fact reason to hold that the body-​taken-​in-​general of the Synopsis
differs from a body that is considered merely abstractly.14
As is well known, Descartes begins his discussion of the wax with the hy-
pothesis that we know the nature of the wax immediately by means of the
qualities of it that we sense, such as the specific scent, color, and shape that it
has when it is drawn from the honeycomb. The fact that the wax can remain
even when all such qualities change shows that the nature of the wax cannot
be identified with any specific set of sensible qualities. There is the additional
hypothesis that this nature can be known through my imagination of the wax
as something “extended, flexible and changeable,” but Descartes insists that
this is no more plausible, given that he correctly judges that the wax can take
on more shapes than he can imagine. The conclusion is that the true nature
of the wax is “perceived by the mind alone” (sola menta percipere), that is, by
pure intellect (AT VII.31).
Descartes is more concerned to show here that the nature of this wax is
revealed by pure intellect than to show what precisely pure intellect reveals
this nature to be. There is some indication that he is interested in the na-
ture of wax as wax, that is to say, as a body of a particular kind. For instance,
Descartes notes parenthetically in Meditation II that his point that the na-
ture of the wax is revealed by the pure intellect alone is “even clearer with
regard to what is common to wax” (de cera enim in communi clarius est) (AT
VII.31). Yet it must be said that there is no hint in this text of an account of
what is common to wax as wax.15 Moreover, it seems that the same proce-
dure that Descartes applies to the consideration of the wax as a particular
piece of wax can be applied as well to the consideration of this wax simply as
a particular body. Whatever features are essential to wax as wax, they will be
accidental to the particular piece of wax considered simply as a body. Just as
this wax can continue to exist as wax without particular sensory qualities, so

14 See in particular the contrast in §5.1.2 between bodies-​taken-​in-​general and the sort of “exten-

sion in general” that Descartes considers in his Principles.

15 In fact, there is some question whether Descartes would allow that there is a “true and immu-

table nature” of wax as wax. At one point Descartes expresses skepticism that we have a clear and dis-
tinct idea of natural kinds such as lions and horses (see RO I, AT VII.117). Elsewhere I have argued
that this skepticism derives from the fact that the natures of such kinds do not derive simply from the
nature of extension, since what properties follow from the natures depends as well on natural laws;
see Schmaltz 2014: 214–​15. It would seem that what properties follow from the nature of the wax as
wax also do not derive from the nature of extension alone.
152 The Metaphysics of the Material World

it can continue to exist as a body without the features that make it a body of a
more specific kind.16
Indeed, in his Principles Descartes suggests just such an application of the
procedure involved in the consideration of the wax. There he is concerned to
defend the conclusion that “the nature of matter, or of body considered uni-
versally [corporis universum spectati], consists not in being something that is
hard or heavy or colored, or which affects the senses in some way, but only
in being a thing extended in length, width and depth.” Just as he argued in
Meditation II that this wax can remain even if its sensible qualities change, so
he argues here that “weight, color, and all other such qualities that we sense in
corporeal matter, can be removed from it, the thing itself remaining whole”
(PP II.4, AT VIIIA.42). As a “body considered universally,” the only thing es-
sential to this piece of wax is its particular extension.17
My proposal is that the wax, considered universally merely as a body, is
a primary example of the sort of body-​taken-​in-​general mentioned in the
Synopsis. If so, the implication is that the wax as conceived by pure intel-
lect is “substance, so that it too never perishes.” This conception of the wax
as merely a portion of extension would need to be distinguished not only
from conceptions of it in terms of sensible or imagined accidents, but also
in terms of any particular features essential to wax as such. For in terms of
this latter conception, the wax would be akin to the human body, which, as
Descartes tells us in the Synopsis, is composed of accidents and so is liable
to destruction. It is only the most general conception of the wax—​that is,
a conception of it simply in terms of its extension—​that can serve as a con-
ception of it as a body-​taken-​in-​general. Indeed, it might be thought that
when Descartes contrasts the human body with body-​taken-​in-​general in
the Synopsis Passage, he is distinguishing the conception of the human body
“insofar as it differs from other bodies” in virtue of having a specific configu-
ration of accidents from the conception of that same body merely in terms of
its extension.
The pluralist reading of the Synopsis Passage can only be reinforced by the
connection of this passage to the wax discussion since the latter is, after all,
specifically concerned with a particular portion of matter and not with the
entire realm of extension. But there are other texts that indicate that when

16 However, I indicate in §5.3.2 that Descartes’s assumption that the same wax can remain through

changes in its quantity is problematic.

17 As we will discover in §5.2, Descartes has reason to add that a particular size or volume is essen-

tial to the wax considered simply as a body-​taken-​in-​general.

 Material Pluralism and Ordinary Bodies 153

Descartes speaks of body or extension taken “in general,” he has in mind not
matter in globo, that is, the material world taken as a whole, but merely par-
ticular portions of matter considered simply in terms of their delimited ex-
tension. Nonetheless, it will be important in the end to recognize that the
bodies-​taken-​in-​general of the Synopsis Passage are only one among dif-
ferent kinds of body or extension as considered in general that Descartes
considers in his writings.

5.1.2. The Plurality of Bodies-​Taken-​in-​General

We have already seen the mention in the Principles of “body considered uni-
versally.” However, there are two additional uses of the notion of “body taken
in general” in Descartes.18 The first is found in Descartes’s discussion of the
relation of body to space, something we considered earlier in connection
with his account of surfaces.19 In the Principles, Descartes notes that space
can be considered as a certain delimited place that different bodies can oc-
cupy. So considered, however, space is a kind of “extension considered in ge-
neral” (extensio consideratur in genere) that is merely a “mode of thinking,”
and not something that exists external to mind (PP II.12, AT VIIIA.46). In
contrast, the space that is identified with the extension of a particular body is
“extension as something singular,” which we consider “as changing whenever
there is a new body” (PP II.10, AT VIIIA.45).
We find the second use of the notion of body-​taken-​in-​general in the
passage from the Mesland Letter that I have cited previously. As we know,
Descartes holds there that un corps en général is merely “a determined part
of matter,” something which together with all other such parts constitutes
“the quantity of which the universe is composed” (AT IV.166). As in the case
of the “extension in general” of the Principles, we have here a particular por-
tion of extension and not the extended world as a whole. Nonetheless, it is
clear from the Mesland Letter that the consideration of a body as a deter-
mined part of matter cannot simply be equated with the consideration of it
as the generic extension of the Principles. We have seen the distinction in the
Principles between generic extension as a mode of thinking and extra-​mental
concrete extension. In contrast, the Mesland Letter indicates that a body in

18 My remarks in this section draw on the discussion in Schmaltz 2009: §2.

19 See particularly §4.3.2.
154 The Metaphysics of the Material World

general is precisely the extension of a body as it is concretely realized in the

material world.
We can understand the individuation of the determined part of matter in
the Mesland Letter in terms of the indication in the Principles that one body
or one part of matter is simply “whatever is transferred together, even though
this may in fact consist of many parts that have other motions in themselves”
(PP II.25, AT VIIIA.54–​55). Since this common motion can be gained or lost
by natural means, the “bodies in general” of the Mesland Letter are subject
to change. Indeed, the emphasis in this letter is on the fact that such bodies
are no longer the same in number (idem numero) when any portion of them
is removed or when new portions are added (AT IV.166).20 In terms of the
Principles, there would be such a change in quantity either through cer-
tain old parts failing to share in the common motion, or through new parts
coming to share in it.
That the body-​taken-​in-​general of the Synopsis Passage is distinct from
the corruptible parts of matter mentioned in the Mesland Letter is clear
from the stress in the former text on the fact that this body, in contrast to the
human body, is incorruptible. As we have seen, Gueroult takes this differ-
ence to support a monist interpretation of the Synopsis Passage. But in fact,
this difference is consistent with a pluralist interpretation of this passage. For
there is the option of holding that any body-​taken-​in-​general has parts that
are themselves incorruptible, and so are distinct from the determined-​parts-​
of-​matter of the Mesland Letter.
In the previous chapter I noted the need in Descartes’s system for a dis-
tinction between two kinds of material parts: physical parts, which are di-
vided through motion, and metaphysical parts, which are divided “in
thought” and without the need for any actual division of matter.21 The de-
termined parts of the Mesland Letter are clearly physical parts individuated
by a common motion, whereas I suggest that the body-​taken-​in-​general of
the Synopsis is a metaphysical part, the boundaries of which can be pro-
vided by mental division into distinct quantities. In the case where we do
not make any division, the metaphysical part would simply be the whole
of matter. Descartes explicitly allows for this case in a passage from his
correspondence with More cited earlier,22 in which he holds that “we can
20 As we will discover in §5.3.1, there is an emphasis in the Mesland Letter on the fact that this fea-

ture of determined-​parts-​of-​matter serves to distinguish them from the human body.

21 See §4.2.1, just before note 53.
22 In §4.2.1, I cite this passage in connection with Descartes’s treatment of impenetrability in the

More correspondence.
 Material Pluralism and Ordinary Bodies 155

conceive a continuous body of indeterminate size, or an indefinite body in

which there is nothing to consider except extension” (Descartes to More,
February 5, 1649, AT V. 269). But what is common to all of the metaphys-
ical parts is that they are conceived solely in terms of a quantity defined by
their size, whether determinate or indeterminate. Though natural changes
in accidents, and particularly in motion, can bring about the destruction of
physical parts, no such changes can destroy any metaphysical part of matter.
These metaphysical parts—​up to and including the whole of matter—​are as
incorruptible as the human mind.
The emphasis in the Synopsis Passage on the fact that incorruptible body
is something that is taken (sumptum) or considered in a certain way may
seem to indicate that it is just the same as the generic extension mentioned
in the Principles.23 However, body-​taken-​in-​general is not a mere mode
of thinking, but rather a substance that is as concrete and particular as the
human mind. The fact that bodies-​taken-​in-​general can be marked out by
mental division indicates not that they are mind-​dependent entities, but
rather that any arbitrarily demarcated region of matter counts as a genuine
substance.24
The body-​taken-​in-​general of the Synopsis thus can be positioned be-
tween the “extension considered in general” of the Principles and “a body
in general” of the Mesland Letter (see Table 5.1). The body of the Synopsis
shares with the extension of the Principles the fact that it does not depend
for its identity on a certain kind of actual motion, and thus is distinguishable
from the body-​in-​general of the Mesland Letter. Yet the body of the Synopsis
is also similar to the body of the Mesland Letter in possessing a concrete ex-
tension that can exist apart from thought. Both are therefore distinct from
the generic extension of the Principles, which is a mere mental entity that is
individuated in thought alone. In the Synopsis, then, Descartes attempts to
make room for parts of matter that have an extra-​mental existence but that

23 Cf. the view of Smith and Nelson that to say that the part is delimited by our thought is to say that

it involves a consideration of the part in abstraction from the one complete extended substance. They
argue that the parts themselves cannot be complete substances, given Descartes’s account of the real
distinction. As I indicate in §5.2.2, this account does generate some difficulties for Descartes’s view of
the substantiality of particular bodies. However, it is clear enough from Descartes’s various remarks,
including his argument against atomism, that he takes any concrete extended substance to be divis-
ible into distinct substantial parts.
24 As the discussion of impenetrability in Descartes’s correspondence with More indicates, how-

ever, no distinct regions can be said to overlap, since the overlapping portion can itself be only a
single part of extension; see §4.2.1, after note 52.
156 The Metaphysics of the Material World

Table 5.1 Descartes on Bodies-​Taken-​in-​General

Principles II Synopsis Passage Mesland Letter

extensio consideratur in corpus in genere sumptum un corps en général
genere
Generic extension Concrete extension Concrete extension
Mode of thinking Extra-​mental Extra-​mental
Individuated in thought Individuated by size/​quantity Individuated by motion
alone
Incorruptible Corruptible

differ from the particular bodies that are individuated, and can be corrupted,
by motion.25
On my pluralist reading of the Synopsis Passage, the argument is that since
bodies-​taken-​in-​general, as metaphysical parts of matter, are substances, it
follows directly that they “never perish.” Having considered from various
perspectives Descartes’s notion of bodies-​taken-​in-​general, it is now time for
us to attempt to understand how he could think that this sort of inference to
the incorruptibility of such bodies is warranted.

5.2. Incorruptibility and the Vacuum

5.2.1. From Substantiality to Incorruptibility

I previously distinguished four parts of the Synopsis Passage, the first of

which is the claim that

absolutely all substances, or things that must be created by God to exist,

are by their nature incorruptible, and cannot cease to be unless they are
reduced to nothing by God’s denying his concourse [concursum suum] to
them. (AT VII.14)

25 Cf. the claim in Kaufman 2014 that “a uniform general picture of what body in general is

emerges” from the relevant texts from the Synopsis and the Principles (78). In a note, however,
Kaufman admits that the passage from the Mesland Letter “does not fit into the uniform characteri-
zation of body in general” (78n30). Indeed, my claim is that there is no “uniform characterization” in-
sofar as the characterization in the Synopsis differs from the characterization not only in the Mesland
Letter but also in the Principles.
 Material Pluralism and Ordinary Bodies 157

The fact that Descartes takes this claim to be drawn from “an account of the
whole of physics” can be explained by the appeal to God’s “concourse.” For
the notion of divine concourse is prominent in the discussion in Part II of
his Principles, on “the principles of material things.” There Descartes argues
that the fact that God conserves the same “quantity of motion and rest” in
the universe follows from the assumption that after having created matter
with its motion and rest, “now through his ordinary concourse alone [per
solum suum concursum ordinarium] he conserves now as much of the total
quantity of motion and rest as he placed in [the material world] then” (PP
II.36, AT VIIIA.61). Descartes indicates that this concourse is “ordinary”
in part because it excludes any changes required by “divine revelation,” and
in particular any miracles.26 So the claim that the total quantities of motion
and rest must be conserved, given God’s ordinary concourse requires that
natural interactions among bodies cannot bring about any change in these
quantities.27 Similarly, the claim that substances can cease to exist only if God
withdraws his concourse has the implication that they cannot be destroyed
by natural means. Moreover, Descartes indicates that substances cannot be
generated by natural means when he tells Regius, in a previously cited pas-
sage, that “it is inconceivable that a substance should come into existence
without being created de novo by God” (January 1642, AT III.505).28 The re-
sult here is that the substances of the Synopsis are naturally ingenerable and
incorruptible, and thus can be produced or destroyed only by the miraculous
divine acts of creation or annihilation.29
As I read it, in the second part of the Synopsis Passage, highlighted pre-
viously, Descartes claims that it follows simply from the fact that bodies-​
taken-​in-​general are substances that they never perish. However, there is

26 See Descartes’s claim that his argument for the conservation of the total quantity of motion and

rest brackets “some changes whose occurrence is guaranteed . . . by divine revelation,” which “our
faith shows us . . . take place without any change in the creator” (PP II.36, AT VIIIA.61).
27 “natural interactions among bodies”: This qualifier is required because in the passage cited in

note 26, Descartes also brackets violations of the conservation principle that are guaranteed “by our
own plain experience” (PP II.36, AT 8VIIIA.61). As I argue elsewhere, the reference is to changes
in the total quantities of motion and rest that derive from the volitional activity of finite minds; see
Schmaltz 2008: 171–​77.
28 The previous citation is from §4.3.1, at note 81. In my discussion of this letter I assume that

Descartes means the point to apply to substances in general. But cf. the argument in Schechtman that
the letter to Regius does not require that all material substances are ingenerable and incorruptible
(2016: 174–​76). I believe that my response in the following paragraph to Schechtman’s interpretation
of the Synopsis Passage applies also to her reading of this letter.
29 As we will discover, however, Descartes seems to be committed to the view that bodies have a

logical sort of incorruptibility that precludes God from absolutely annihilating portions of matter in
a manner that creates vacua; see §5.2.2, after note 53.
158 The Metaphysics of the Material World

some opposition to this reading of the passage. In a recent discussion, Anat

Schechtman insists that in the Synopsis “Descartes never states that the
human body is not a substance . . . [but] states only that ‘body taken in a ge-
neral sense’ and the human mind are substances, and moreover that the latter
is a ‘pure substance’ ” (2016: 172). Schechtman is concerned here to allow for
Descartes’s endorsement of the “scholastic thesis” that “ordinary objects such
as human beings, animals, plants, and inanimate bodies are all substances”
(2016: 160).30 For the scholastics, the paradigmatic material substances are
plants and animals, objects that are not incorruptible but can indeed be pro-
duced or destroyed by natural means. On Schechtman’s understanding, the
Synopsis Passage does not intend to rule out the possibility that such objects
are genuine substances. Rather, what Descartes holds to be incorruptible in
this text is merely a specific kind of substance, namely, a “pure substance”
(puram substantiam) that is not “made up of a certain configuration of
members and other accidents” in the manner, for instance, that the human
body is (AT VII.14).
However, I think the Synopsis Passage itself indicates clearly enough that
incorruptibility is supposed to follow from substantiality as such, and not
simply from the “pure” substantiality of an indivisible mind. Note again the
unqualified claim in this passage that “absolutely all substances” (omnes
omnino substantias) that are created by God are incorruptible by their na-
ture (AT VII.14). Moreover, this characterization of created substance is in
line with Descartes’s view in the Principles that created substances are “things
that require solely the concourse of God to exist” (PP I.52, AT VIIIA.25). He
is not specifying a particular kind of created substance here; indeed, he is ex-
plicitly offering a conception of substance as such that applies in a univocal
manner to all creatures.31 And it seems evident to me, at any rate, that in the
Synopsis it is this univocal conception that is supposed to yield the conclu-
sion that “absolutely all [created] substances” are incorruptible by their very
nature.32

30 Though Schechtman remains non-​ committal on the controversial question of whether the
human being counts as a single substance for Descartes (see 2016: 164n19), she takes him to be com-
mitted to the view that the human body is a substance. Toward the end of §5.3.1, I consider some
complications that derive from this view.
31 As indicated in the previous chapter, Descartes holds in the Principles that there is no notion of

substance that applies univocally to God and creatures; see §4.1.2, after note 35.
32 In §5.3.2, I consider whether there might nonetheless be some room in Descartes’s metaphysical

system for the “scholastic thesis” that Schechtman—​correctly (see note 67)—​takes to be reflected in
some of Descartes’s remarks.
 Material Pluralism and Ordinary Bodies 159

In the case of bodies we can understand Descartes’s argument in terms

of a particular account of material corruption. I have cited Descartes’s claim
to Mesland that determined-​parts-​of-​matter are “not entirely the same, or
idem numero” when any portion is added or removed (AT IV.166). One case
of corruption occurs when a portion of a determined part is separated from
it by means of motion. But such separation leaves intact the quantities that
previously composed this part. Similarly, Descartes tells us in the Synopsis
that the human body becomes something else in virtue of a change in the
shape of some of its parts that is brought about—​as are all natural changes in
matter—​through motion. Once again, however, such change leaves intact the
quantities that composed the human body. Insofar as these quantities do not
depend for their existence on some feature that can be changed by motion,
they cannot be corrupted in the way in which determined-​parts-​of-​matter
and human bodies can. On my account, however, bodies-​taken-​in-​general
do not depend on such features since they are to be conceived in terms of
their size or quantity alone. Thus, we have the conclusion of the Synopsis that
such bodies are incorruptible.33
Recently Kurt Smith and Alan Nelson have offered a competing interpre-
tation of the Synopsis Passage, according to which it claims that the human
body is corruptible simply in virtue of the fact that it is divisible. This connec-
tion is supposed to derive from the fact that corruption, for Descartes, “can
only be the division and rearrangement or dispersal of parts” (2010: 1–​2).
Support for this reading may seem to be provided not only by the claim in
this passage that the human mind is “by its nature immortal” in virtue of the
fact that it is a pure substance, but also by the emphasis in remarks just prior
to this passage that we can understand “no mind except as indivisible” (AT
VII.13). Thus, one might think that Descartes simply identifies a pure sub-
stance that is incorruptible by nature with a substance that is not divisible
into parts.
Nevertheless, closer examination reveals that it is not the indivisibility of
the human mind that is most crucial to the argument in the Synopsis for its
immortality. Rather, it is the fact that this mind does not essentially depend
for its continuing existence on the presence of some particular accident.34
As Descartes expresses the point in the Synopsis Passage, “even if all of the

33 Cf. the discussion of Descartes’s account of corruption in Kaufman 2014: 91–​99, which I con-

sider further in note 40.

34 Cf. the critique of Smith and Nelson in Rozemond 2011: 249–​50; and in Kaufman 2014: 88–​91.
160 The Metaphysics of the Material World

accidents [of mind] change, so that it understands other things, wills other-
wise, senses otherwise, etc., it does not itself thereby come to be some other
mind” (AT VII.14). All that is required for the continued existence of mind is
the persistence of its substantial thought, however that thought be modified.
This is the point that is crucial for the comparison of the human mind
to bodies-​taken-​in-​general. If incorruptibility required indivisibility, then
bodies-​taken-​in-​general could not be incorruptible, given Descartes’s own
insistence in the Synopsis that “we understand no body except as divisible”
(AT VII.13).35 But the divisibility of body-​taken-​in-​general is not obviously
incompatible with the requirement that an incorruptible substance not es-
sentially depend for its continuing existence on the presence of some partic-
ular accident. As long as the persistence of body-​taken-​in-​general depends
only on the continuing existence of a basic substantial nature, however that
nature be modified, it will be as incorruptible as the human mind.
Yet there remains the question here of why Descartes thinks that the in-
corruptibility of some created thing follows simply from the fact that it is
a created substance. In the previous chapter we considered two different
conceptions of substance in Descartes’s writings. The first, from the Replies to
Objections II, and thus prior to Descartes’s recorded encounter with Suárez,
identifies substance with the ultimate subject of properties. The suggestion
in this text is that this conception of substance applies univocally not only to
created substances, but also to God.36 However, it seems that this univocal
conception cannot explain why substantiality should entail incorruptibility.
For instance, the human body is something in and through which a property,
say, its shape, exists as in a subject. Moreover, the human body does not itself
seem to be in anything else as in a subject. Nonetheless, the indication in the
Synopsis is that the human body does not count as a substance, at least in the
same sense in which body-​taken-​in-​general and the human mind do.
However, we have encountered a different conception of substance in
the Principles, and thus subsequent to Descartes’s encounter with Suárez.37
Indeed, this text offers two such conceptions, one applying to God alone,
and the other applying only to created substances. According to the former, a
substance is “the thing that so exists that it depends on nothing else to exist”
(PP I.51, AT VIIIA.24), and only God has the sort of absolute independence

35 Indeed, this is a “problem” that Smith and Nelson attempt to resolve in their article. On my

reading, however, there is no such problem in the Synopsis that requires resolution.
36 See, again, the discussion in §4.1.2, after note 35.
37 See §4.1.2.
 Material Pluralism and Ordinary Bodies 161

required to be a substance in this sense. According to the latter, however,

substances are “things that require solely the concourse of God to exist” (PP
I.52, AT VIIIA.25).38 Given the continuation of God’s contribution to the
natural course of nature, substance so understood must continue to exist.
For this reason, it can be said that this sort of substance is incorruptible “by
its nature.”
Nevertheless, the conception of created substance common to the
Synopsis and the Principles does not itself seem to shed much light on the
question of why a created substance is incorruptible. To be sure, it follows
from the fact that created substances require only the continuation of God’s
concourse in order to persist that such substances are naturally incorrupt-
ible. But the question is this: what is it about being a created substance as
such that makes it the case that it requires only the continuation of God’s
concourse in order to continue to exist?39 In response, it might be helpful to
appeal to an additional characterization of substance in Descartes, reflected
in his official position in the Principles that “for each substance there is
one principal attribute [præcipuum attributum], such as the thought of the
mind [mentis cogitatio], and the extension of the body [corporis extensio]”
(PP I.53, AT VIIIA.25). Insofar as mind consists only in thought, and
body only in extension, there is no possibility of any corruption of these
substances. Since for Descartes mind and body are the only kinds of cre-
ated substances, such corruption would have to involve thought naturally
turning into extension or extension naturally turning into thought. This
would be inconceivable given his view that “mind is completely different
from body” in virtue of the fact that the former is indivisible whereas the
latter is divisible by its nature (AT VII.86).40

38 I have suggested in a Suárezian spirit that this conception of created substance is to be conceived

as analogous to the conception of divine substantiality; see §4.1.2, after note 36.
39 I think that even without an answer to this question we can resolve a controversy in the litera-

ture over the sort of independence that the Principles assigns to created substance. Whereas the most
common view is perhaps that this independence is causal, there is the problem that the dependence
relation in the case of modes seems to involve inherence rather than causation. For a comprehensive
discussion of the scholarly debate on this issue, see Schechtman 2016. However, I think the point in
the Principles is that created substances are such that their continued existence requires only that God
conserve them by his ordinary concourse. Modes do not have the same nature insofar as God must
(given the way he has freely established the eternal truths) also conserve the substances they modify
in order to conserve them in existence.
40 Kaufman stresses a similar point when providing a reconstruction of Descartes’s argument for

the incorruptibility of substance; see Kaufman 2014: 94. As I indicate presently, however, this cannot
be the complete story.
162 The Metaphysics of the Material World

Even so, there is a need here to distinguish the principal attributes consid-
ered in general and the principal attributes of particular minds and bodies.
In correspondence with Arnauld, Descartes notes that “just as extension,
which constitutes the nature of body, differs greatly from the various shapes
or modes of extension that it assumes, so thought, or a thinking nature, in
which I take the essence of the human mind to consist, is very different from
any particular act of thinking” (July 29, 1648, AT V.221). We know that for
Descartes different thinking substances do not share numerically the same
attribute; each such substance has its own particular thinking nature, which
is only generically similar to the thinking natures of other created minds.
I take the comparison in this letter of individual bodies to individual minds
to reinforce the result of the Synopsis Passage that the principal attribute of
a particular body-​taken-​in-​general is not extension in general, but rather a
specific quantity that is numerically distinct from other (non-​overlapping)
quantities that compose matter as a whole.41
But there remains the question: whence the incorruptibility? It is perhaps
not entirely obvious that a particular thinking nature could not naturally
turn into a different thinking nature, or a particular quantity into a different
quantity. I think it is easier to reconstruct Descartes’s thought if we focus
on the case of a particular body-​taken-​in-​general, as opposed to a partic-
ular human mind. To begin, I propose that Descartes simply identified this
body with its principal attribute, that is, with the particular size or quantity
that we have delimited in thought.42 Admittedly, in the Principles Descartes
offers size along with shape and motion as examples of modifications of body,
as opposed to a principal attribute (PP I.48, AT VIIIA.23). However, in this
same text he indicates that size has a special status when he claims that “one
and the same body, retaining its same quantity, can have several different
modes: now greater in length and less in breadth or depth, and a little later by
contrast greater in breadth and less in length” (PP I.64, AT VIIIA.31). In the
spirit of this remark, I am taking size to be the principal attribute of a partic-
ular body-​taken-​in-​general that can be modified by different shapes.43

41 “Non-​overlapping”: see note 24.

42 On this sort of identification, see the scholarly disagreement indicated in c­ hapter 4, note 22.
43 Notice that the relation of the principal attributes of bodies-​taken-​in-​general to extension in

general does not seem to hold in the case of finite minds. For there would appear to be no sense in
which the principal attributes of the minds can be conceived to be modifications of thought in ge-
neral. I mention other differences between Descartes’s conception of bodily and mental substanti-
ality in §5.2.2.
 Material Pluralism and Ordinary Bodies 163

Insofar as size is a principal attribute of a body-​taken-​in-​general, that

body would be different if there were any change in its quantity. In this re-
spect, body-​taken-​in-​general would be similar to the determined-​part-​of-​
matter that Descartes discusses in the Mesland Letter. In a passage from this
letter cited previously, Descartes notes there that “if any particle of the matter
were changed, we would at once think that the body is not entirely the same,
or idem numero” (AT IV.166). To use a contemporary term of art, the prin-
ciple of “mereological essentialism” holds in the case of determined-​parts-​
of-​matter insofar as these parts cannot survive any change in their parts.44
My suggestion is that this same principle holds in the case of bodies-​taken-​
in-​general, and thus that these bodies also could not survive any change in
their particular quantity.
This might seem to be an unfortunate result for Descartes, given that he takes
determined-​parts-​of-​matter to be corruptible but also insists that bodies-​taken-​
in-​general are incorruptible. However, I have already touched on one difference
between these kinds of bodies that makes a difference in this case. In order for
a determined-​part-​of-​matter to persist, all of its parts must share in the motion
that serves to individuate that part. In contrast, bodies-​taken-​in-​general are not
individuated by motion or by anything else beyond the quantity we delimit in
thought. Insofar as that quantity persists through any natural change, so too
does the body-​taken-​in-​general.
To discern the difference this difference makes, consider the case of the
destruction of a determined-​part-​of-​matter d through the separation of one
of its parts p2 at t2 (see Figure 5.1).45 After this separation, d ceases to be idem
numero, as Descartes says in the Mesland Letter. However, the body-​taken-​
in-​general b, the quantity composed of p1 and p2, survives the change that
occurs in the transition from t1 to t2. Thus, b persists even when d is destroyed.
Indeed, b would seem to survive any natural change that brings about the de-
struction of any determined-​part-​of-​matter that b or any part of b comes to

44 Roderick Chisholm initially formulated mereological essentialism as the principle that “every

whole has the parts it has necessarily, or . . . if y is a part of x then the property of having y as one
of its parts is essential to x” (Chisholm 1976: 145). I am following the discussion of this principle
in Van Cleve 1986. Van Cleve distinguishes three grades of mereological essentialism, the first of
which precludes the continuing existence of a whole with the destruction of a part, the second with a
removal of a part, and the third with a rearrangement of parts. The version of the doctrine that I am
considering precludes the continuing existence of a whole with any increase or decrease in parts,
which I think rules out destruction and removal but perhaps not rearrangement. It is not entirely clear
from what Descartes says in the Mesland Letter whether he would include rearrangement among the
changes in determined-​parts-​of-​matter that bring about the destruction of these parts.
45 This figure is inspired by the one provided in Van Cleve 1986: 143.
164 The Metaphysics of the Material World

d, b ~d, b

p2 p2
p1

p1

t1 t2

Figure 5.1 Descartes on the separation of parts.

compose. Admittedly, b can survive at t2 only as a “scattered” object.46 But in

contrast to determined-​parts-​of-​matter, nothing in the identity conditions
for bodies-​taken-​in-​general rules out this kind of survival.47
Given that mereological essentialism holds for it, a body-​taken-​in-​general
depends essentially for its own existence on the existence of all of its parts.
Insofar as these parts are incorruptible, there is no problem here for the in-
corruptibility of the body-​taken-​in-​general. Yet in a famous discussion in
his Ethics, Spinoza emphasizes another feature of Descartes’s account of the
material world that threatens pluralism. In particular, he takes Descartes’s
rejection of the possibility of a vacuum in nature to preclude the view
that different parts of matter are “really distinct,” and so count as different
substances. This “vacuum argument” does not show that Descartes himself
rejected pluralism, nor—​it must be said—​was Spinoza under any illusions
on this score. Nonetheless, the Spinozistic argument does put this position

46 I am drawing here on Van Cleve’s discussion cited in notes 44 and 45. According to Van Cleve,

“an object is scattered iff it has parts and is not continuous,” where an object is continuous just in case
“any two parts of it that exactly compose it are in contact with each other” (1986: 142). In Descartes’s
case, this would need to be changed to the claim that an object is scattered just in case it is divisible
into parts and not all of the parts share in the same motion. Stuart makes the interesting suggestion
that given Descartes’s account of rarefaction, a rarified body would be a scattered object insofar as it
has gaps in its parts filled with other matter (Stuart 1999, 99). However, insofar as these parts share in
the same motion, they would not count as scattered in the sense I have in mind.
47 Cf. Rozemond’s claim that given the position in the Synopsis, “the chunks of extended stuff, even

if scattered, still belong to the same kind: extended stuff ” (2011: 250). But I take Descartes’s point
to be stronger: the chunk of extended stuff remains the same particular substance even when it is
scattered.
 Material Pluralism and Ordinary Bodies 165

under considerable pressure. What this argument indicates, in particular, is

the difficulty of reconciling Descartes’s pluralism with a strong version of the
assumption in the Synopsis Passage that bodies-​taken-​in-​general share with
human minds the very same kind of substantiality.

5.2.2. The Vacuum Argument and the Real Distinction

In a scholium to Proposition 15 from Part I of his Ethics, Spinoza offers a

Cartesian argument for his conclusion that “no corporeal substance, insofar as it
is substance, is divisible” (Ip13c, G II.55). The argument is that those “who deny
a vacuum” must accept this conclusion, for the following reason:

For if corporeal substance could be so divided, such that its parts were really
distinct, why could one part not be annihilated, the other parts remaining
connected as before? And why must they all be connected so that there is
no vacuum? Truly when things that are really distinct from each other, one
can be, and remain in its state, without the other. Since therefore there is no
vacuum in nature (of which elsewhere), but all its parts must concur so that
there is no vacuum, it follows also that they cannot be really distinguished, that
is, corporeal substance, insofar as it is substance, cannot be divided. (G II.59)

The parenthetical “of which elsewhere” (de quo alias) indicates the Cartesian
nature of this argument. For it is almost surely a reference to the reconstruc-
tion of Descartes’s own position that Spinoza offered in his Renati Des Cartes
Principiorum Philosophiæ . . . More Geometrico demonstratæ, a 1663 presen-
tation, more geometrico, of portions of Descartes’s text. In Proposition 3 from
Part II of his summary, Spinoza notes on Descartes’s behalf that “it involves a
contradiction that there should be a vacuum,” pointing out that “by a vacuum
is understood extension without corporeal substance (by def5), that is (by
p2) body without body, which is absurd” (G I.188). Definition 5 stipulates
that a vacuum “is extension without corporeal substance” (G I.181), while
Proposition 2 states that “the nature of Body or Matter consists in extension
alone,” from which it is said to follow in the corollary that “Space and Body
do not differ in re” (G I.181). The corollary cites Definition 6, which states
that “we distinguish Space from extension only by reason, and they are not
distinct in re” (G I.181). In terms from the Principles that we have encoun-
tered earlier, the argument here is that since space differs from a corporeal
166 The Metaphysics of the Material World

substance that occupies it only by a distinction of reason, and not by a real

distinction, that the notion of a vacuum, or a space without corporeal sub-
stance, is contradictory.48
In his summary of Descartes’s position, Spinoza carefully preserves plu-
ralism. Thus, in one proposition he argues that it follows from definition
of body as “the immediate subject of local motion” (DPP Idef7, G I.150)
that it is divisible into parts (DPP Ip16, G I.76). But from Descartes’s pre-​
Suárezian conception of substance as “everything in which there is imme-
diately, as in a subject, . . . some property, quality or attribute” (DPP Idef5,
G I.150), it follows that the parts into which body can be divided are them-
selves substances.49
Yet now there is a puzzle. In his summary, Spinoza presents Descartes’s ar-
gument against the vacuum in terms of a conception of corporeal substance
as divisible into substantial parts. In the Ethics, however, the vacuum argu-
ment is supposed to show precisely that corporeal substance cannot be di-
vided into such parts. So what are we to make of these competing versions of
the vacuum argument?
There are two main lessons here. First, it is clear from Spinoza’s presenta-
tion in his summary of the Principles that he did not himself take Descartes
to endorse a monist conception of corporeal substance. But secondly, and
relatedly, the vacuum argument in the Ethics is in fact an internal critique of
Descartes’s pluralism with respect to corporeal substance. It is supposed to
follow from Descartes’s own conception of a real distinction that the parts of
matter are not really distinct, that is to say, are not different substances. This
is supposed to follow since if the parts were really distinct, there would be
the possibility of a vacuum in nature. In particular, there would be the pos-
sibility that God could annihilate one part while continuing to conserve the
surrounding parts in their previous positions, thus creating a discontinuity
in continuous extension.50

48 For further discussion of this argument, which considers it in light of Bayle’s critique of Spinoza,

see Schmaltz 1999. On this critique, see §1.1.

49 In DPP Ip16, Spinoza appeals to the divisibility of body in support of the conclusion that God

is incorporeal. For the corresponding argument in Descartes, see PP I.23, AT VIIIA.13–​14. In both
texts, it is said that God, as a supremely perfect being, cannot be corporeal, given that divisibility is
an imperfection. Though neither text indicates why divisibility is an imperfection, one can guess that
this is so because it precludes the absolute sort of unity that supreme perfection requires.
50 I take Spinoza to be drawing here on Descartes’s indication in the Principles that a real distinc-

tion between two things requires the possibility of God’s “conserving the one without the other” (PP
I.60, AT VIIIA.29). See §4.1.2, after note 31.
 Material Pluralism and Ordinary Bodies 167

We can understand this argument in terms of the simplified version in

the Principles of Suárez’s real distinction. I have claimed that in this text
Descartes ties the real distinction exclusively to the notion of a created sub-
stance, and that mutual separability by God is not only sufficient but also
necessary for such a distinction.51 Spinoza’s vacuum argument is relying on
just the sort of notion of a real distinction that requires separable existence
as a necessary condition. Thus, the claim that corporeal substance is divisible
into really distinct parts requires that any of those parts can exist without the
others. But then we have the possibility of a rupture in the continuum, where
all of the parts exist except one. Since on his own view it is impossible that
there be such a rupture, Descartes is committed to the conclusion that matter
does not have really distinct parts, that is to say, that it is not divisible “insofar
as it is substance” (quatenus substantia est) (G II.59).
One move here that is perhaps open to Descartes is to deny that the real dis-
tinction requires the possibility of mutually separable existence. Indeed, we
have seen that Suárez explicitly allowed for the possibility of a real distinction
that does not involve mutual separability.52 Had Descartes followed Suárez’s
lead, he perhaps would not have been vulnerable to Spinoza’s vacuum argu-
ment. The attempt to formulate a notion of the real distinction that covers
both mental and bodily substances in the same way would certainly be in the
spirit of the Synopsis Passage, which assumes that bodies-​taken-​in-​general
and human minds share the same sort of substantiality.53
However, I think that the vacuum argument reveals that there may well
not be a single notion of substance that covers these two cases. One funda-
mental difference between these cases concerns the kind of incorruptibility
that applies to human minds and bodies-​taken-​in-​general. As we have seen,
Descartes suggests that this incorruptibility is only natural incorruptibility,
thus allowing for annihilation by means of a supernatural divine act. In the
case of human minds, one can conceive of God “suspending” his concourse
in order to annihilate a particular mind. The fact that such a suspension is
conceivable explains Descartes’s response to the objection that he has failed

51 See §4.1.2, after note 38.

52 As indicated in §2.2.1; see also Table 2.1.
53 Cf. Rozemond’s proposal that Descartes would respond to Spinoza’s vacuum argument by

applying to the case of real distinction “a different version of the separability criterion, separability
with respect to union rather than separability with respect to existence” (2011: 254). I respond to
Rozemond’s reading of Descartes in §4.1.2, after note 31. On the difference between the two kinds of
separability in Suárez, see §2.2.1, after note 32.
168 The Metaphysics of the Material World

to provide a demonstration of the immortality of the human soul. In his

Replies to Objections II, Descartes notes that

if you are asking about the absolute power of God, and whether he may have
decreed that human souls cease to exist precisely when the bodies which he
joined to them are destroyed, it is for God alone to respond. (AT VII.154)

Consistent with his “ordinary concourse,” God can decree certain exceptions
to the natural order by means of his “absolute power.”
Yet in light of the vacuum argument, it is difficult to see that the same sort
of natural incorruptibility is involved in the case of bodies-​taken-​in-​general.
For in Descartes’s own terms, any creation of a vacuum by means of the an-
nihilation of a particular part of matter would be not merely contrary to the
natural order, but impossible to conceive. This is clear from an important ex-
change that Descartes had with Arnauld on the issue of the vacuum. Arnauld
initially warned that given the omnipotence of God, it is best not to assert
that “God necessarily conserves all bodies, or at least that he cannot annihilate
any without at the same time creating another” (Arnauld to Descartes, June 3,
1648, AT V.190–​91). At first, Descartes ignored the appeal to divine omnip-
otence and simply repeated his official position that the notion of a vacuum
is contradictory.54 But Arnauld pressed again, insisting that one should not
think that God “cannot now annihilate any body without at the same time
being obliged to create another of the same size” (Arnauld to Descartes, July
1648, AT V.215). Finally, Descartes was forced to address the issue of divine
omnipotence, claiming that “it seems to me that one must never say that
something is impossible for God,” and that one can say only that “it implies
a contradiction in my conception to say that a space is entirely empty, or that
nothing is extended, or that the universe is terminated.” In the same way, one
must say only that God “has given mind such a nature that I could not con-
ceive of a mountain without a valley, or that the sum of one and two not make
three” (Descartes to Arnauld, July 29, 1648, AT V.190–​91). The implication
here is that God can annihilate a particular portion of matter and create a
vacuum only in the sense that he can make eternal truths concerning the na-
ture of extension to be other than they are. The sort of incorruptibility that

54 See Descartes to Arnauld, June 4, 1648, AT V.190–​91; Descartes is repeating his position in PP

II.16, AT VIIIA.49.
 Material Pluralism and Ordinary Bodies 169

holds in the case of particular parts of matter is thus much stronger than the
sort of incorruptibility that individual human minds possess.55
Another distinction between bodies-​taken-​in-​general and human minds
derives from a difference that Descartes himself admits in the Synopsis when
he notes that we understand “no body except divisible, but on the contrary
no mind except as indivisible” (AT VII.13). I have insisted against Smith
and Nelson that this difference plays no role in the argument in the Synopsis
Passage for the immortality of the human mind. Yet Descartes himself
indicates, in Meditation VI, that it is in virtue of its indivisibility that this
mind is “a thing quite unified and complete” (rem planem unam et integram)
(AT VII.86). This unity and completeness explains the fact that a created
mind can exist in separation not only from body, but also from other finite
minds. However, I have claimed that mereological essentialism applies to
Descartes’s bodies-​taken-​in-​general. Since this is so, each such body, up to
and including indeterminate matter as a whole, depends essentially on its
parts. Insofar as its parts are really distinct from it, a body-​taken-​in-​general
does not have the sort of independence from all other created substances that
human minds possess. Thus, a body-​taken-​in-​general cannot be a substance
in the sense of being something that is “unified and complete.”
It is instructive to compare Descartes’s conception of bodies-​ taken-​
in-​general to the account in Suárez, considered in ­chapter 3, of accidental
collections, such as woodpiles or houses. I have offered on Suárez’s behalf
the view that such collections are mere composites of parts that are them-
selves complete beings. There is thus a contrast with material substances with
a true substantial form, which include integral parts that are only incomplete
beings insofar as they are essentially ordained to the composition of those
substances. One way that I have illustrated this contrast is by noting that
whereas a top-​down mereology applies to such material substances, only a
bottom-​up mereology can apply to the accidental collections.56
To be sure, Descartes’s bodies-​taken-​in-​general cannot simply be equated
with Suárez’s accidental collections. For one thing, Suárez requires at least

55 A later follower of Descartes, Robert Desgabets, explicitly linked God’s power to annihilate

matter with his power to create different eternal truths. Indeed, his position is more radical than
Descartes’s insofar as Desgabets argued that thinking substances are as impervious to annihila-
tion, and thus are as “indefectible,” as matter. For a discussion of Desgabets’s views on this issue, see
Schmaltz 2002: ch. 2.
56 See §3.2.2, before note 64.
170 The Metaphysics of the Material World

spatial proximity for his collections, whereas we have seen that Descartes is
committed to allowing his bodies-​taken-​in-​general to exist as scattered objects.
However, the fact that Descartes’s bodies-​taken-​in-​general are governed by the
principle of mereological essentialism indicates that he must apply a bottom-​up
mereology to them. For there is an essential dependence of any quantity—​up
to and including “a continuous body of indeterminate size”—​on the substan-
tial parts that compose it. In contrast, the unity and completeness of the mind
precludes its essential dependence on any created substance that is really dis-
tinct from it. Its particular thoughts are not parts but rather modes that must be
understood—​top-​down—​in terms of its nature as a thinking thing.57
Pluralism can be retained, then, only by sacrificing the unity and com-
pleteness of body-​taken-​in-​general. Spinoza offers another route: retain the
unity and completeness of corporeal substance by sacrificing pluralism. In
response, Descartes could perhaps revise the requirements for a real distinc-
tion that provide a basis for Spinoza’s vacuum argument. But he would be left
with a pluralist conception of corporeal substance as something that depends
essentially on its substantial parts, a conception that Spinoza himself is con-
cerned to reject in order to retain the view that corporeal substance, insofar
as it is substance, is something that is unified and complete on its own.58
As the Synopsis Passage indicates, Descartes intends to offer a notion of
substance that applies univocally to created mental and bodily substances.
Yet Spinoza’s vacuum argument reveals that the incorruptibility of bodies-​
taken-​in-​general is different in kind from the sort of incorruptibility that
Descartes takes individual human minds to exhibit. Moreover, Descartes’s
pluralism does not allow for bodily substances to possess the sort of unity
and completeness that is an essential feature of human minds. The result
here seems to be that the term substance cannot apply univocally to mind
and body, given the idiosyncratic nature of the body-​taken-​in-​general that
Descartes posits. And indeed, this result seems to track Suárez’s own con-
clusion that the accidental unity of collections of integral parts such as wood
heaps is related to the per se unity of genuine substances only by analogy.59

57 Cf. the conclusion toward the start of §4.2.2 that Descartes cannot accept the view in Suárez that

even though continuous extension has continuous parts, these parts themselves are merely incom-
plete as opposed to complete beings.
58 I return to Spinoza’s position in §6.1.1.
59 See §3.2.2, after note 63. Suárez himself claims that among substances only spiritual and not ma-

terial ones are indivisible in the sense of being “composed of no parts” (DM XXXIV.5.5–​7. II.381ab).
To my knowledge, however, he does not conclude from this that the notion of substance applies to
spiritual and material things only by analogy of intrinsic attribution.
 Material Pluralism and Ordinary Bodies 171

We can relate this result to a discussion in the recent literature. In par-

ticular, Patrick Toner has criticized attempts to provide a definition of
substance in terms of independence that applies in the same way both to
composite substances that depend on their parts and to simple substances
that have no such dependence.60 Toner asks of such a definition: “If there are
substances that depend on nothing else, and other alleged substances that
do depend on something else (namely, their parts), then why think that the
independent things are the same kind of things as the dependent things?”
(2011: 38). This is precisely the sort of question I am asking Descartes. Toner
takes the lesson to be that we should either hold that only simple substances
can be substances, or give up on the attempt to explicate substantiality
in terms of independence” (2011: 42). In contrast, my suggestion with re-
spect to Descartes is that there is no account of the independence of created
substances that applies univocally both to finite indivisible minds and to di-
visible bodies-​taken-​in-​general.

5.3. Ordinary Bodies, Human and Otherwise

5.3.1. The Human Body and Two Bodily Natures

In the Synopsis Passage, Descartes differentiates the human body from body-​
taken-​in-​general by emphasizing that the former is “made up of a certain
configuration of members and other accidents of this kind” (AT VII.13). It is
high time that we attempt to understand what this means. One place to start
is with a passage from Descartes’s Passions of the Soul that may well be some-
what disconcerting, given what we have said to this point about his account
of body. In this passage Descartes claims that “the body is a unity that is in a
sense indivisible [en quelque façon indivisible], because of the disposition of
its organs, which are all so related to each other that when something of them
is lost, the whole body is rendered defective” (PA I.30, AT XI.351). Given his
consistent claim that the body is divisible by its very nature, Descartes cannot
be saying that the human body is indivisible in just the way the human mind
is. As the passage itself indicates, however, the point is that the human body
is indivisible in the sense that it has organs that are so interrelated that the

60 One of Toner’s targets is Gorman 2006; there is a response to Toner in Gorman 2012.
172 The Metaphysics of the Material World

human mind can be united to “the whole assemblage of [the body’s] organs”
(AT XI.351).61 When Descartes refers in the Synopsis to the fact that the
human body can “be something else solely from the fact that the shape of
some of its parts changes” (AT VII.13), we can take him to be thinking of
those changes in the shape of the parts of the human body that disrupt the
interrelation of organs required for union of this body with a human mind,
and so render the body “defective.” If the changes are radical enough, there is
no longer the minimal sort of interrelation of organs required for the union,
and that union is thereby dissolved. In this case, the human body becomes
“something else” (AT VII.14), namely, a corpse.
Descartes highlights another special feature of the “unity” of the human
body in his discussion in the Mesland Letter of determined-​parts-​of-​matter.
We have seen how in the Synopsis Passage Descartes distinguishes bodies-​
taken-​in-​general from the human body. Likewise, in the Mesland Letter
he distinguishes determined-​parts-​of-​matter from this kind of body. But
whereas his concern in the Synopsis is to highlight the corruptibility of the
human body, the point in the Mesland Letter is that the human body can re-
tain its identity through changes in its material composition. As we know,
Descartes holds that determined-​parts-​of-​matter cannot survive any in-
crease or decrease in their quantity. However, Descartes emphasizes to
Mesland that the human body is not a determined-​part-​of-​matter, but rather
“the whole of the matter that is united to the soul of [a]‌man” (AT IV.166).
There is no reason to think that this matter remains the same over time; in-
deed, Descartes appeals to the fact that nutrition occurs “by a continual ex-
pulsion of parts of our members” in support of the conclusion that there is
not “any particle of our body that remains the same in number [la même nu-
mero] for a single moment.” Even so, Descartes insists that our body, “insofar
as it is a human body, remains always the same in number [toujours la même
numero] as long as it remains united to the same soul” (AT IV.167). The
Synopsis indicates that the human body, unlike body-​taken-​in-​general, can
be corrupted by natural changes. However, the Mesland Letter makes clear

61 See also Descartes’s claim in the Mesland Letter that we can take the human body to be indivis-

ible insofar as “whatever matter it may be and whatever quantity or shape it may have, we always take
it as the body of the same man and as the entirely complete body [le corps tout entier], provided that it
needs no additional matter in order to remain joined to [the human] soul” (AT IV.167). I return pres-
ently to the account of the human body in the Mesland Letter.
 Material Pluralism and Ordinary Bodies 173

that this body differs from determined-​parts-​of-​matter insofar as it survives

changes in its matter in virtue of its union with the human soul.62
In Meditation VI, Descartes emphasizes yet another special feature of
the human body. In the course of considering whether the human body can
be said to deviate from its nature in cases where it suffers from dropsy, he
indicates one sense in which it cannot be said to so deviate. If one views the
human body merely as a kind of machine, its nature is simply to operate ac-
cording to the laws governing its mechanism. As Descartes claims, how the
body operates when it suffers from dropsy is just as natural as when a similar
dryness of the throat in a body not suffering from dropsy leads to a drink
that is beneficial. In this way, the human body is similar to a clock, which
“observes the laws of nature when it is poorly made and does not indicate
the correct time as when it satisfies all of the wishes of the clockmaker” (AT
VII.84).
Admittedly, Descartes allows that one can speak of the clock as departing
from its nature when it fails to indicate the correct time. But he also explains
that this sense of “nature” differs from a sense of “nature” that is “really to be
found in the things themselves.” For when we say that the poorly made clock
or the dropsical human machine deviates from its nature, we are merely com-
paring these bodies to our idea of a properly functioning clock or a healthy
human body. In this sense “nature” is “nothing more than a denomination
from my thought [denominatio a cogitatioe mea], . . . and is said to be ex-
trinsic [extrinseca] to those things” (AT VII.85). Descartes is borrowing here
the scholastic notion of an extrinsic denomination (denominatio extrinsica),
according to which a property is attributed to something just on the basis of
the relation of that thing to something external. A common example is the
denomination of urine as healthy, which is extrinsic because it is based on the
fact that the urine is merely a sign of the health that is an intrinsic feature of
the animal body. For Descartes, the denomination of the human machine as
healthy and of the clock as well-​made is extrinsic because it is based solely on
our idea of what the proper functions of these bodies are.
Nonetheless, Descartes insists that when the human body is considered
not merely as a machine, but also as something that is united to a human

62 Pasnau argues that there is no need to take seriously the account in the Mesland Letter of the in-

dividuation of the human body (2011: 570–​73). I think there is a need to take this account seriously,
given that it is consistent with what Descartes says about the unity of the human body in Passions of
the Soul (see note 70).
174 The Metaphysics of the Material World

mind, the claim that the dropsical body deviates from its nature does not in-
volve merely an extrinsic denomination. Rather, in this case dropsy indicates
a “true error of nature” insofar as it indicates something that detracts from
the union of this body with a human mind (AT VII.85). By virtue of the
union, then, claims concerning the health and illness of the human body are
able to involve intrinsic rather than merely extrinsic denominations.63
Of course, this distinction between the two natures does not apply directly
to the issues addressed in the Mesland Letter, since the focus in Meditation
VI is on proper and improper functioning and not on persistence through
changes in material constitution. Nonetheless, I think that something anal-
ogous to the distinction of natures in Meditation VI can be applied to the
view in the Mesland Letter. When a human body is considered simply as a
determined-​part-​of-​matter, it has a “nature” that does not allow for it to re-
main the same through material change. But when it is considered as united
to the human mind, the human body has a different nature, namely, that of a
unified collection of organs that are interrelated in such a way as to allow for
this union. This nature is compatible with changes in material constitution
just as long as those changes do not bring about a failure to meet the minimal
bodily conditions for union. Moreover, such a nature is not merely an ex-
trinsic denomination, since it is grounded in intrinsic features of the human
composite.
Does this nature allow us to say that the human body is a substance? Not
insofar as we are applying the notion of substance from the Synopsis and
Principles, which has as an implication that substances are incorruptible (and
ingenerable). However, I have noted already that this body does seem to satisfy
the definition from Replies to Objections II insofar as it serves as a continuing
subject for properties. There is no question here of replacing the human body
with bodies-​taken-​in-​general, since the same subject of the human properties
remains even when the quantity changes. The case of the human body seems to
provide an especially clear instance in which one of Descartes’s explications of
substance pulls apart from his others.
One might well ask whether Descartes’s explications pull apart in other
instances. I have mentioned Schechtman’s concern to defend the acceptability
for Descartes of the “scholastic thesis” that “ordinary objects such as human
beings, animals, plants, and inanimate bodies are all substances” (2016: 160).

63 For different perspectives on the implications of Descartes’s account of the two natures of the

human body, see Des Chene 2001: ch. 6; Shapiro 2003; and Manning 2012.
 Material Pluralism and Ordinary Bodies 175

The question is whether the definition of substance as the subject of properties

(which is not itself a property of something else) reveals that those ordinary ma-
terial objects that Descartes takes to lack any sort of union with a finite mind
(such as animals, plants, and inanimate bodies) are genuine substances, despite
the fact that they are generable and corruptible. This is the final question we
need to address in this chapter.

5.3.2. The Metaphysics of Ordinary Bodies

When Descartes speaks of bodily substances, he occasionally offers ordinary

material objects as examples. Thus, in Meditation III he says that “a stone is a
substance, or is a thing that is apt to exist per se [quae per se apta est existere]”
(AT VII.44).64 Moreover, in Replies to Objections IV he allows that though
a part of the human body such as a hand is only an “incomplete substance”
when it is “referred to the whole body of which it is a part,” it nonetheless is “a
complete substance when it is considered on its own” (AT VII.222). In taking
both living bodies and their integral parts to be really distinct substances,
Descartes agrees with at least one line of thought in the scholastic tradition.65
However, scholastics tended to limit material substances to living bodies and
their integral parts, along with basic elements and composites of those. In
contrast, Descartes offers as further examples of bodily substances artifacts
such as clothing.66 The clear implication is that Descartes extends the notion
of created substance far beyond bodies-​taken-​in-​general and finite minds.

64 There are two terms that require explanation here: “per se” and “apta.” In Replies to Objections

IV, Descartes defines substance as whatever “can exist per se, that is without the help [ope] of any
other substance” (AT VII.226). The indication here is that per se existence is linked to the definition
of substance common to the Synopsis and the Principles, as opposed to the definition in Replies to
Objections II. The apta presumably indicates that we are dealing with the notion of a created sub-
stance, as opposed to the notion that applies to God. For the latter requires not a mere aptitude to
exist per se that can be actualized only by an external act of creation/​conservation, but rather an ex-
istence per se that derives a se, that is, from the existing thing itself.
65 Namely, actualism, according to which the integral parts of a substance are themselves

substances distinct from each other and from the whole they compose. As indicated in §3.2, Ockham
and Suárez both accepted versions of actualism. The contrast here is with the versions of possibilism
in Aquinas and Fonseca that take undetached integral parts to be merely potentially substantial.
66 Descartes offers the example of clothing both in Replies to Objections VI (AT VII.441) and

in Comments on a Certain Broadsheet (AT VIIIB.351). Descartes’s deviation from Aristotelian or-
thodoxy is reflected in his claim in the Principles that “I do not recognize any difference between
artifacts and natural bodies except that the operations of artifacts are for the most part performed by
mechanisms that are large enough to be perceived by the senses” (PP IV.203, AT VIIIA.326).
176 The Metaphysics of the Material World

According to the pluralist interpretation of Descartes in the work of

Laporte that I have considered previously, material objects such as a stone
and a separated hand, in addition to the “quantity of matter from which they
are formed,” qualify as substances (1950: 1998–​99). This also seems to be
the upshot of the reading of Descartes that Bayle deploys against Spinoza’s
substance monism. For according to Bayle, Descartes identifies substance
with the ultimate “subject of inhesion” of accidents. And such subjects
would appear to include ordinary material objects. The textual evidence
seems to me to leave little doubt that Descartes did in fact take such objects
to be substances.67 It might be thought, moreover, that considerable theo-
retical support for this position is provided by the account of substance in
his Replies to Objections II, according to which being an ultimate subject
of inherence is sufficient for being a substance.68 What is in question, how-
ever, is whether Descartes is justified in positing ordinary material objects
as substances in addition to the bodies-​taken-​in-​general that he takes in the
Synopsis Passage to be substantial, and therefore incorruptible.
In order to address this question, let us start with a simple case, namely, the
example from the Mesland Letter of a determined-​part-​of-​matter. Does this
count as a created substance? Certainly not in terms of the criteria offered in
the Synopsis and the Principles. For whereas the indication in these texts is
that created substance depends for its persistence only on the continuation of
God’s ordinary concourse, we know that determined-​parts-​of-​matter can be
naturally destroyed by means of motion.
We still have the criterion for substantiality in Replies to Objections II,
which seems to allow for determined-​parts-​of-​matter to be substances in-
sofar as they serve as subjects of modifications such as shape and motion. But
there is a complication here given that these parts are composed of bodies-​
taken-​in-​general. In the case illustrated in Figure 5.1, d is composed of b at
t1. These two cannot simply be identified given that d is destroyed at t2 while
b persists. But there is some question whether we need d in addition to b
to serve as the subject of the modifications of the quantity at t1. It might be
convenient for Descartes to distinguish the physical parts of matter from
its metaphysical parts. After all, it seems difficult to track parts that are not

67 Cf. Stuart’s claim that Descartes “speaks lightly” when he refers to ordinary material objects as

substances (1999: 100). But the texts themselves don’t seem to me to support this sort of deflationary
reading. On this point I agree with Schechtman (see note 32).
68 See §4.1.1, after note 16.
 Material Pluralism and Ordinary Bodies 177

individuated by motion. But at a basic metaphysical level, it is not clear that

Descartes needs physical parts that are distinct from metaphysical parts to
serve as subjects of properties.
We can discern the importance of this issue for Descartes by considering
a particular example of a determined-​part-​of-​matter, namely, the particular
piece of wax that he considers in Meditation II. His consideration has as a
background assumption that the same particular piece of wax can persist
through changes in its sensible qualities, including its size. However, the as-
sumption is problematic insofar as it requires that the same piece of wax can
also persist through changes in its material constitution brought about by the
gain or loss of parts. Such a change would seem to involve the replacement
of one set of bodies-​taken-​in-​general with another set that constitutes a new
substantial subject.69
In the case of the human body, Descartes can derive a subject distinct from
bodies-​taken-​in-​general by appealing to the union of this body with a human
mind. This body cannot be identified with the metaphysical parts that com-
pose it insofar as the body persists even when composed of different meta-
physical parts. The question is whether we can have a similar result in cases
where there is no union with a human mind. One suggestion is that we can
get such a result insofar as we can conceive of non-​human material objects as
persisting subjects on analogy with the human body. The analogy is easiest
to discern in the case of animal bodies, which have a functional organization
that is similar to the organization of the human body. But even with other
ordinary material objects, including the piece of wax, it is perhaps possible
to appeal to some sort of functional or structural continuity that allows us to
talk about a subject that survives changes in its material composition. Thus,
the wax, for instance, could be said to persist in virtue of the fact that it has
a persisting configuration that serves as the subject of its changing sensible
qualities.
My worry here is that this analogy derives its force from the fact that the
human body is a legitimate candidate for a persisting subject that nonetheless
undergoes changes in its quantity. The problem is that the persistence of the
human body is explained ultimately not by its structure or functional organi-
zation, but rather by its union with a human mind. A certain interrelation of

69 Thanks to Yitzhak Melamed for drawing my attention to the relevance here of Descartes’s discus-

sion of the piece of wax.

178 The Metaphysics of the Material World

organs is, of course, necessary for the union. Apart from that union, however,
it seems that this interrelation could provide no basis for the claim that the
human body survives changes in its quantity.70
Another way of expressing this worry is by saying that we are attributing
to the other material objects a nature that pertains intrinsically only to the
human body. If so, then in light of the distinction in Meditation VI of the
two bodily natures, we have the result that we attribute persistence to these
objects only by extrinsic denomination. We can no more pick out an intrinsic
feature when we denominate the objects as persisting than we can pick out
an intrinsic feature when we denominate the watch as functioning properly.
If there is no room for ordinary material objects other than the human
body on the substance side of the substance/​property divide, perhaps there
is room for them on the property side of that divide. Indeed, Matthew Stuart
has proposed as a possibility for Descartes that ordinary material objects fail
to be substances “not because they fail to qualify as the subject of properties,
but because they are properties themselves,” and in particular “properties of
quantities of matter” (1999: 101). Thus, being a determined part of matter,
or an animal body, or a piece of clothing, or a piece of wax would be a pro-
perty of a particular quantity, that is to say, in terms drawn from the Synopsis
Passage, of a particular body-​taken-​in-​general. To be a determined part of
matter, animal body, piece of clothing, or piece of wax is simply to be a body-​
taken-​in-​general that is arranged in a certain way. Stuart indicates as one ad-
vantage of this proposal that “it would dissipate any oddness resulting from
the colocation of ordinary physical objects and quantities of matter,” insofar
as “there is nothing odd about a thing and its properties being in the same
place at the same time” (1999: 101). I have already suggested that Descartes
could dissipate this oddity by eliminating ordinary material objects (other
than the human body) as subjects distinct from bodies-​taken-​in-​general. In
effect, Stuart’s response on Descartes’s behalf is that these objects could be
reinstated as properties of such bodies.
Nonetheless, there is considerable reason to doubt that Stuart’s proposal
can save the view that such objects persist through changes in material

70 In his edition of Descartes’s writings, Ferdinand Alquié claims that the passage from Passions

I.30 cited earlier indicates that the identity of the human body derives from the disposition of its
organs alone, and so conflicts with the assertion in the Mesland Letter that the identity of this body
derives from the human soul (Descartes 1973: 976n3). However, I think the claim in the Passions that
the removal of organs renders the body “defective” refers to the fact that such a change weakens the
union with the human soul. Thus, even in the Passions we cannot understand the unity and indivisi-
bility of the human body apart from the relation of that body to the human soul.
 Material Pluralism and Ordinary Bodies 179

constitution. Such changes bring about the existence of numerically different

collections of bodies-​taken-​in-​general. But if the collection is the subject of
the property, and if properties in general are tied to a particular subject, no
property that is idem numero could survive changes in quantity. We might
have a succession of qualitatively similar properties, but that would not
be enough to ensure the persistence of the objects in any metaphysically
robust sense.
To be sure, it might seem that Descartes’s account of surfaces—​which
we considered in the previous chapter—​provides some response to this
problem. Recall Descartes’s view that this surface is the “external place” of
a body that is “no more than a mode.” Recall also that this surface “is always
supposed to be the same, when it retains the same shape and size” (PP II.15,
AT VIIIA.48). Finally, recall that it is this surface that is the causal source of
our sensations of whatever body the surface contains.71 If we identify the wax
not with the particular set of bodies-​taken-​in-​general that compose it, but
rather with the modal surface that contains such bodies, then perhaps we can
say that wax persists through changes in its material constitution insofar as it
continues to exist as the surface that causes the same sort of sensations.
Thus, the properties with which Stuart wants to identify ordinary ma-
terial objects on Descartes’s behalf might well be able to be conceived as
modes akin to surfaces, that is, as modes that do not belong to any partic-
ular body but that can be common to different bodies with the same rele-
vant dimensions. Even if no single collection of bodies-​taken-​in-​general
persists to serve as the substantial subject of these modes, the modes
themselves can be said to remain. In this way, one could suggest, ordi-
nary material objects that survive changes in their material constitution
are saved.
We have seen that Descartes appealed to this account of surfaces in
order to retain species in the Eucharist that persist through the substan-
tial change produced by consecration. However, we have also discovered
that this account—​and so Descartes’s view of the Eucharistic species—​runs
afoul of his Suárezian conception of the modal distinction, which requires
that modes are inseparable from the particular subject they modify.72
When distinguished from particular bodies, surfaces can be only “modes
of thinking,” mere abstractions from concrete reality, as in the case of a

71 On Descartes’s “modal realist” account of surfaces, see §4.3.1.

72 See §4.3.2.
180 The Metaphysics of the Material World

space that is conceived to be the place of different bodies. But when the
surfaces are considered as concrete modes, Descartes’s modal distinction
requires that they cannot be distinctly understood—​and so cannot exist—​
apart from the particular bodily substances they modify. The result here,
I think, is that Descartes’s account of surfaces cannot save the concrete re-
ality of ordinarily persisting material objects, such as the particular piece
of wax.
I cannot claim to have considered every possible way of saving ordinary
material objects within the constraints of Descartes’s system.73 However,
I do think that at this point we need to take seriously the possibility that
Descartes simply cannot accord such objects ultimate metaphysical reality,
either as substances or as modal properties. On this level, what is primary
is not the definition of substance in Replies to Objections II, on which Bayle
places particular emphasis in his discussion of Descartes. Rather, it is the def-
inition of created substance in the Principles, on which relies the argument
for the incorruptibility of body-​taken-​in-​general in the Synopsis Passage.
Both definitions are in line with the pluralism that Descartes’s account of the
material world and Bayle’s use of it require. But there remains a tension—​
unnoticed by Bayle—​ between Descartes’s desire to retain the material
substances of our ordinary experience and the implication in the Synopsis
Passage that only incorruptible bodies-​taken-​in-​general can count as gen-
uine material substances.
There is the proposal in the recent literature that “we should give up the
idea that Descartes has a theory of material substance” (Pasnau 2011: 686).
Certainly this would be one way of overcoming the tension in his theory
of material substance. But though I agree that Descartes’s acceptance of
the view that ordinary material objects are substances does not have a firm
theoretical basis, I would argue that this is because the theory of material
substance indicated in the Synopsis Passage does not provide one. On that
theory, ordinary material objects (human bodies excepted) can be nothing
other than determinate-​parts-​of-​matter, aggregates of bodies-​taken-​in-​
general that cannot survive any changes in material constitution. We have

73 Calvin Normore has suggested, with Deborah Brown, that there is room in Descartes’s ontology

for bodily “composites” that are neither substances nor modes, but rather sui generis; see Normore
2011: 225–​26. However, Normore’s closing remark that these additional entities may be “a function of
our interests,” and thus that “what there is in the Cartesian ontology” may be “to some extent, a matter
of what we put there” (239), provides some reason to suspect that they are merely phenomenal.
 Material Pluralism and Ordinary Bodies 181

reason to conclude that there is no theory in Descartes that supports a com-

monsense ontology of the material world, not because he offers no theory,
but because the theory that emerges from his texts is fundamentally at odds
with this ontology.74
If, as Bayle assumes, Spinoza adopted Descartes’s metaphysics of the ma-
terial world, he would seem to be committed to the same result. However,
we will discover in ­chapter 7 that he offers an account of the material world
that is supposed to allow for the persistence of bodily “individuals” through
changes in material constitution. Such an account rests on a fundamental
revision in Spinoza of Descartes’s substance-​mode metaphysics, which revi-
sion we will begin to consider in the next chapter.

74 Pasnau claims that there are “endless questions” about Descartes’s view of material substance

that one cannot answer since he has no theory, such as: “Must a region be continuous to count as a
substance? Is Descartes committed to rejecting the part-​whole identity thesis? Would the existence
of wholes as something over and above their parts fit into his austere ontology? Could he instead
coherently insist on part-​whole identity? Can wholes be identified with their parts, in a theory that
recognizes no smallest parts, meaning that every part is itself a whole, infinitely far down?” (Pasnau
2011: 687). Though I can’t consider these questions in detail, I have already suggested that Descartes
has the theoretical resources to answer them. For instance, I have argued that he can allow for the
existence of bodies-​taken-​in-​general as scattered objects (see Figure 5.1 in this chapter), and I would
think that he could accept a version of the reductionist view in Ockham (see §3.2.1, after note 51) that
an integral whole is nothing over and above the sum of its integral parts.
PART III
SPINO Z A
 6
Metaphysical Themes from Descartes

Bayle’s previously cited claim that Spinoza “had been a great Cartesian”
(DHC, “Spinoza,” rem. DD, IV.269a)1 is not an unfamiliar one. The associ-
ation of Spinoza with Descartes also seems to be warranted. After all, the
only work that Spinoza published under his own name was his 1663 sum-
mary of portions of Descartes’s Principles. Yet in the preface to that work,
Spinoza’s editor, Lodewijk Meyer, was instructed to note, concerning the
views presented in the text, that though the author “judges that some of the
doctrines are true, . . . nevertheless there are many that he rejects as false,
concerning which he holds a quite different opinion” (G I.131).2 As an ex-
ample, Meyer cites Descartes’s doctrine that “the human mind is a substance
thinking absolutely.” He continues:

Though our author admits, of course, that there is a thinking substance in

nature, he nevertheless denies that it constitutes the essence of the human
Mind; instead he believes that just as the human body is not extension ab-
solutely, but only an extension determined in a certain way according to the
laws of extended nature by motion and rest, so also the human Mind, or
Soul, is not thought absolutely, but only a thought determined in a certain
way according to the laws of thinking nature. (G I.132)

Whereas Descartes holds that the human mind and its body are distinct
substances, Spinoza claims that both are merely thought and extension “de-
termined in a certain way” according to laws, and thus distinct from thought
and extension considered “absolutely.” Indeed, Spinoza endorses a monism
that requires that thought and extension, considered absolutely, are attributes
of the one and only substance.
The differences are clear, but it is nonetheless important not to forget
Meyer’s admission that Spinoza judges some of Descartes’s positions to be

1 Cited in §1.1.3, after note 18.

2 Spinoza reports that he had so instructed Meyer in a 1663 letter to Oldenburg, Ep XIII, G IV.63.

The Metaphysics of the Material World. Tad M. Schmaltz, Oxford University Press (2020).
© Oxford University Press.
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190070229.001.0001
186 The Metaphysics of the Material World

true. More than this, even when he is arguing against Descartes, Spinoza
utilizes conceptual material that Descartes himself provided. We have
encountered a dramatic instance of this in Spinoza’s appeal in the Ethics
to the “vacuum argument,” which is supposed to show that the Cartesians
themselves are committed to the substantial indivisibility of corporeal sub-
stance.3 We have seen that Descartes appropriated and revised the substance-​
mode metaphysics found in Suárez in the service of defending a conception
of the material world very different from Suárez’s own scholastic conception.
So also, we will discover, Spinoza appropriated and revised the substance-​
mode metaphysics found in Descartes in the service of defending a material
monism very different from Descartes’s own material pluralism.
In considering the relation of Spinoza to Descartes on the issue of the met-
aphysics of the material world, I begin in §6.1 with a treatment of Spinoza’s
substance monism that places it in its Cartesian context. I highlight two dis-
tinctive tenets of this monism: the first, that only a being that is a causa sui
can be a substance that exists in se, and the second, that there is a single sub-
stance that possesses infinitely many conceptually irreducible attributes. In
order to defend the first tenet, Spinoza had to shed some scholastic views to
which Descartes himself remained attached. In order to defend the second,
he had to reconceptualize the claim in Descartes that irreducible attributes
are really distinct.
I turn in §6.2 to the “mode” portion of Spinoza’s substance-​mode meta-
physics. With respect to this portion, it is crucial to determine what Spinoza
means when he defines a mode as something that “is in” and “is conceived
through” another. I argue that the conception of a mode must be understood
in terms of the fact that it inheres in another. Yet Spinoza also indicates that
this inherence must be understood in terms of the fact that modes are “cer-
tain and determinate expressions” of divine power. The conception of a mode
in terms of this sort of “power ontology” certainly is not fully anticipated in
the previous development of the notion of a mode in Suárez and Descartes.
This is not to deny that Spinozistic modes have any Cartesian aspect. Indeed,
I argue that there are some respects in which these modes can be said to be
more Cartesian than Suárezian. Even so, Spinoza’s theory of modes was his
own, as shown not only by its emphasis on the notion of power, but also by its
introduction of the category of “infinite modes.”

3 See the discussion of this argument in §5.2.2.

 Metaphysical Themes from Descartes 187

In §6.3, I conclude with an initial consideration of the application of

Spinoza’s substance-​mode metaphysics to the material world. Spinoza’s in-
sistence that “extension” is a fundamental feature of this world may seem to
reflect a deeply Cartesian aspect of his thought. However, his power ontology
conditions his conception of extension, yielding something very different
from Descartes’s continuous quantity. An important feature of Spinozistic
extension is the fact that it is an internal source of diversity in the material
world. This is in explicit contrast to Descartes’s view that such diversity arises
from motion imposed from without by a transcendent Creator. Yet it turns
out that there is a significant input from Descartes’s physics into Spinoza’s
account of the way in which extension yields diversity by way of the infinite
mode of “motion and rest.”

6.1. The Nature of Substance/​Attributes

6.1.1. Substance Monism

A central conclusion of the first part of the Ethics, “On God,” is that “whatever
is, is in God, and nothing can be conceived without God” (E Ip15, G II.56).
This conclusion is said to follow from the fact that “except God, no substance
can be or be conceived” (E Ip14, G II.56), from the definition of a substance
as “what is in itself and conceived through itself ” (E Idef3, G II.45), and from
the definition of modes as “the affections of substance, or that which is in an-
other through which it is also conceived” (E Idef5, G II.45). Thus, whatever
is, is either identical to God as substance, and so is in and conceived through
God, or is an affection or mode of God, and so is in and is conceived through
God: this is the main result of Spinoza’s substance monism.
There might seem to be a direct route to this form of monism that that runs
through the account of substance in Descartes’s Principles. As we have seen
previously, Descartes holds in this text that when the term substance is un-
derstood to pick out something “that can so exist that it depends on nothing
else to exist,” it can apply to God alone, and thus “there is no meaning of the
term that can be distinctly understood to be common to God and creatures”
(PP I.51, AT VIIIA.24).4 On a reconstruction of the argument for substance

4 See §4.1.2, after note 35.

188 The Metaphysics of the Material World

monism from this passage that Steven Nadler has attributed to him, Spinoza
makes the following objection to Descartes:

I agree that a substance is essentially what exists in such a way that it

depends on nothing else for its existence; but then, as you yourself admit,
strictly speaking only God is a substance; and I, in order to be fully con-
sistent, refuse to concede to finite things even a secondary or deficient kind
of substantiality. (Nadler 2006: 56)

To be consistent, then, Descartes must admit that, strictly speaking (as

Nadler puts it), God is the only substance. And insofar as it is the case that,
strictly speaking, what essentially depends on something else is a mode of
that on which it so depends, finite things must—​again, strictly speaking—​be
modes of God rather than substances, just as Spinozistic monism requires.5
Bayle indicates that there is a way of turning this sort of argument against
the view that Spinozistic monism differs more than verbally from Descartes’s
admission of created substances. Recall that after the publication of the first
edition of his Dictionaire, Bayle confronted the objection that Spinoza has
the same conception as Descartes of extended substance and simply calls it a
mode “because he believed that a substance is a being that does not depend
on any cause” (DHC, “Spinoza,” rem. DD, IV.269a). According to this ob-
jection, then, Spinoza is merely renaming Descartes’s created extended sub-
stance. The nature of this substance, as a quantitative subject of properties
that depends essentially on God, remains unaltered.6
We have seen that Bayle attempted to respond to this objection of “the
friends of Spinoza” by appealing to Spinoza’s own view that extended things
not only causally depend on God but also “are in God in the way in which
the school philosophers suppose that they are in prime matter” (DHC,
“Spinoza,” rem. DD, IV.269b).7 Thus, for Spinoza, God not only is the only
causally independent being; in addition, he is the only being that can be said
to exist in himself (in se). Everything else must be said to exist in God (and
thus in alio).8

5 See also Curley’s claim that “Spinoza does have a powerful argument, from principles Descartes

would have had difficulty in rejecting, for the most uncartesian conclusion that there is only one sub-
stance, God” (Curley 1988: 30).
6 For discussion of this objection and of Bayle’s response to it, see §1.1.3. In §6.3, I begin to consider

Spinoza’s revision of Descartes’s conception of extended substance.

7 Previously cited in §1.1.3, before note 16.
8 As indicated in §6.2.1, however, there is scholarly dispute over what Spinoza means by the claim

that something exists in God.

 Metaphysical Themes from Descartes 189

We will need to consider the relation of this result in Spinoza to what we

find in Descartes. It is worth noting initially, however, that the result certainly
seems to mark a fundamental difference from Suárez. After all, Suárez insists
that created things can be called substances insofar as they exist in se, as ultimate
subjects of properties.9 Yet the conceptual machinery of the Ethics rules out
the possibility that what exists in se does not also exist a se. As I have indicated,
this text stipulates that substance is “what is in itself and conceived through it-
self [in se est et per se concipitur]: that is that the concept of which does not re-
quire the concept of another thing from which it must be formed” (E Idef3, G
II.45). However, the status of substance as something that is conceived per se is
to be further understood in terms of the axiom that “the cognition of the effect
depends on the cognition of the cause, and involves the same” (effectus cognitio
a cognitione causae dependet, et eandem involvit) (E Iax4, G II.46). Given this
axiom, something that is conceived per se cannot be produced by something
other than itself, since in that case it would have to be conceived through an-
other. Thus, Spinoza concludes that anything that is conceived per se must have
existence from itself, and so exist a se.10 Moreover, since for Spinoza only that
which can be conceived per se can be said to exist in se, anything that exists in se
as a substance, as opposed to existing in another as a mode of substance, must
also exist a se.
Even Spinoza’s claim that God exists a se differs from the superficially sim-
ilar claim that we find in Suárez. As I have noted, Suárez requires that effi-
cient causes be external to their effects. Thus, his claim that God exists a se
indicates that there is no efficient cause of God’s existence.11 Indeed, Suárez
states explicitly that “not all beings comprehended under this science [of
metaphysics] have a true and proper cause, for God has no cause” (DM XII,
I.372b). In contrast, Spinoza indicates in the Ethics that God as substance is
a “cause of itself ” (causa sui) insofar as his essence necessarily involves exist-
ence (E Ip7d, G I.49), and holds explicitly that the sort of causality involved
here is efficient causality.12 For Spinoza, then, there is no problem with the
view that God is the efficient cause of his own being.

9 For this point in Suárez, see §2.1.

10 See E Ip7, “It pertains to the nature of substance to exist” (G II.49), which is said to follow from E
Ip6, “One substance cannot be produced by another substance” (G II.48). The possibility that there is
no cause of the existence of substance is precluded by the axiom, “What cannot be conceived through
another, must be conceived through itself ” (E Iax2, G II.46).
11 See the discussion of this point in §2.1, after note 14.
12 See the claim in Ethics Ip25s that “God must be called the cause of all things in the same sense

in which he is the cause of himself ” (G II.67), and the claim in Ip26d that in the case of any cause
that has been determined to act in a particular way, “God, from the necessity of his nature, is the
190 The Metaphysics of the Material World

With respect to this opposition between Suárez and Spinoza, Descartes is

something of a transitional figure. There is the suggestion in Meditation III
that God derives his existence from himself.13 However, this suggestion was
immediately criticized precisely on the grounds that it requires that some ob-
ject be the efficient cause of itself. Thus, Caterus responds to this suggestion
in Objections I by protesting that God can derive his existence from himself
only in a negative sense—​that is, not from another—​and not in a positive
sense—​that is, from a cause. He adds that this negative sense is the manner
“in which everyone takes the phrase” in the case of God (AT VII.95). On
this point Caterus is perfectly in line with Suárez, who noted that though
“what is said to be ex se or a se seems to be positive, it adds only a negation to
being itself, for being cannot be a se by a positive origin or emanation” (DM
XXVIII.1.7, II.3a).
In response to Caterus, Descartes insists that it is legitimate to assume that
everything requires an efficient cause of its existence, and so to inquire into
its cause. Descartes goes on to say that even though the fact that God has
“great and inexhaustible power” reveals that he does not require an external
efficient cause for his existence, still since “it is he himself who conserves
himself, it does not seem too improper for him to be called sui causa” (RO
I, AT VII.109). Given that God can be called a causa sui, “we are permitted
to think that in some manner [quodammodo] he stands in the same with re-
spect to himself as an efficient cause stands with respect to its effect, and thus
is positively from himself ” (AT VII.111).14
Dissatisfied with this response to Caterus, to which he had access, Arnauld
notes in Objections IV that we must reject the conclusion that God’s exist-
ence has an efficient cause, given that his existence is identical to his essence.
Arnauld adds that since nothing can stand in the same relation to itself as an

efficient cause both of its essence and of its existence” (G II.68). I take these texts to provide reason to
question the claim in the recent literature that the sort of causality that Spinoza attributes to God is
formal rather than efficient. See, for instance, the claim in Carraud 2002 that for Spinoza “the efficient
cause is thus rigorously what the scholastics would have called the formal cause” (323). As Carraud
is aware, a similar position is anticipated in Gueroult 1968: 297. See also Hübner 2015. For a detailed
response to this sort of line of interpretation that draws on the relevant scholastic context of Spinoza’s
thought on this issue, see Zylstra 2018.
13 In particular, in this Meditation, Descartes notes that if he derived his existence from himself, he

would have given himself all divine perfections, and so be God (AT VII.48).
14 See also Descartes’s complaint in correspondence that “the common axiom of the Schools,

‘Nothing can be the efficient cause of itself ’ [Nihil potest esse causa efficiens sui ipsius], is the cause
of the fact that one does not understand the term a se in the sense in which it must be understood,”
adding that he nevertheless “did not want to appear to blame the schools openly” (Descartes to
Mersenne, March 18, 1641, AT III.336). This passage was no doubt written prior to the response to
Arnauld on this point, to be discussed presently.
 Metaphysical Themes from Descartes 191

efficient cause does to its effect, God cannot stand in this relation to himself
(AT VII.213–​14).
Though Descartes protests that Arnauld’s complaint “seems to me to the
least of all his objections” (RO IV, AT VII.235), he responds to it at some
length. He begins by insisting that he had never said that God is an efficient
cause of his own existence, but only that God quodammodo stands in the
same relation to his existence as an efficient cause does to its effect. In order
to explain more precisely the sense in which God can be said to be the cause
of his existence, Descartes appeals to the claim in Aristotle that the essence
of a thing can be considered as a “formal cause” of certain features of that
thing (AT VII.242). He concedes to Arnauld that the fact that God’s existence
is identical to his essence reveals that he does not require an efficient cause,
but he claims that God’s essence provides a formal cause of his existence that
“has a great analogy to the efficient [cause], and thus can be called an efficient
cause as it were [quasi causa efficiens]” (AT VII.243).15
One has the sense that Descartes was not entirely on top of his game. For
instance, it is understandable that Arnauld read Descartes’s response to
Caterus as an attempt to apply the notion of efficient causality to the case of
God’s existence. After all, Descartes counters Caterus’s suggestion that God
can derive existence from himself only in a negative sense by insisting that he
never denied that something can be the efficient cause of itself (AT VII.108).
Moreover, we have seen that Descartes gave permission to Caterus to think
that God stands to himself as an efficient cause to its effect.
Even so, it is perhaps clear enough that Descartes did not take God liter-
ally to be the efficient cause of his own existence, and that when he spoke as if
God’s existence has such a cause, it was only, as he told Arnauld, “on account
of the imperfection of the human intellect” (AT VII.235). In the end, there-
fore, Descartes’s scholastic sensibilities prevented him from fully embracing
the conclusion in Spinoza that God is an efficient cause of his own exist-
ence.16 For this reason, we cannot attribute to Descartes a Spinozistic under-
standing of the claim that God is the only substance that exists a se.
Yet there remains the question of whether Descartes need grant the sound-
ness of the Spinozistic argument that finite creatures must be conceived

15 For another instance of the claim that God’s essence is a formal cause of his existence, see

Descartes’s letter of March 1642, perhaps to Mesland or Saint-​Croix, at AT V.546. For more on
Descartes’s exchange with Arnauld on this point, see Carraud 2002: 266–​88, and Schmaltz 2011.
16 Thus, one must reject the view in Marion 1996 that Descartes took God to be a causa efficiens sui

ipsius (143–​82). For a critique of this view, see Carraud 2002: 266–​76 (but cf. the objection in note 12
to the particular reading of Spinoza in light of this critique).
192 The Metaphysics of the Material World

through God, and so as modes of God. Initially, it may well seem so. After
all, in the Principles Descartes holds that an understanding of the nature of a
mode depends on an understanding of the nature of the substance it modi-
fies (PP I.61, AT VIIIA.29). Moreover, he is committed in this text to the con-
clusion that by their nature all beings other than God depend on him both
for their existence and for their continued creation.17 Given this essential de-
pendence, how can it not be the case that finite creatures are modes of God?
We have already confronted Suárez’s response to this Spinozistic argu-
ment, namely, that no being that exists a se, and so is identical to the essence
of a necessarily existent being, can be the subject of variable accidents.18
But we can find the same sort of response in Descartes’s Principles, which
includes the claim that “we do not, strictly speaking, say that there are [var-
iable] modes or attributes in God, but simply [invariable] attributes, since
in the case of God any variation is unintelligible” (PP I.56, AT VIIIA.26).
So whereas creatures must be understood to be causal effects of God, they
cannot be understood to exist in God as qualities or modes.
A similar line of argument underlies Bayle’s objection that since the God
of the Spinozists is the subject in which the changing forms in nature inhere,
“it is therefore not at all the supremely perfect being, in whom there is neither
a shadow of change nor any variation” (DHC, “Spinoza,” rem. N, IV.260b).19
In response to this argument, I suspect that Spinoza would begin by empha-
sizing his own claim in the Ethics that “God, or all of God’s attributes, are
eternal” (Deus, sive omnia Dei attributa sunt æterna) (E Ip19, G II.64). By
the divine attributes, Spinoza means everything that “the intellect” perceives
to constitute God’s essence as substance (E Idef4, G II.45).20 The eternal es-
sence of substance that the attributes constitute is to be contrasted with “the
affections, or modes, by which God’s attributes are expressed in a certain
and determinate way” (affectiones, sive modi, quibus Dei attributa certo, &
determinato modo exprimuntur) (E Ip25c, II.68). It is only the “certain and
determinate expressions” of divine substance, and not that substance itself,
that can be said to be variable.

17 We have considered the implication in Principles I.51 that the notion of a created substance has

built into it the fact that it so depends on God. In the French edition of this text, the implication is ex-
tended to des qualitiez ou des attributs of such a substance (see AT IXB.47).
18 See §2.2.1, after note 22.
19 Quoted in §1.1.2, after note 14.
20 In §6.1.2, I consider further Spinoza’s view of the relation of substance to its (infinitely many)

attributes.
 Metaphysical Themes from Descartes 193

Bayle anticipated this sort of response, and he was unmoved by it. Thus,
following the passage from the Dictionaire I have just cited, he objects that

the Proteus of the poets, their Thetis, and their Vertunmus, the images and
examples of inconstancy, and the foundation of the proverbs that denote
the most bizarre fickleness in the heart of man would have been immutable
gods if the God of the Spinozists was immutable; for it never was claimed
that any change of substance occurred in them, but only new modifications.
(IV.260b)

Since these beings change only with respect to their modifications, and not
with respect to their substance, Spinoza would have to admit that they are
themselves immutable, an admission that serves as a reductio ad absurdum of
his substance monism.
However, it seems that Spinoza can insist that Bayle’s fickle beings (“the
Proteus of the poets, their Thetis, and their Vertunmus”) are themselves
modifications, and so things that do not share in the immutable eternity of
substance. In an important letter to his friend Meyer, Spinoza claims that the
fact that only the definition of substance involves existence, and not the def-
inition of modes, reveals that “we conceive the existence of Substance to be
entirely different from the existence of Modes.”21 Because the existence of
modes at a certain time does not itself require their existence at another time,
such an existence involves a duration that we can conceive “as greater or less,
and divide . . . into parts.” In contrast, we cannot conceive that substance does
not exist, and so must attribute to its existence an eternity that “can undergo
none of these [comparisons or divisions] without destroying at the same
time the concept we have of it” (April 20, 1663, G IV.54–​55). So even though
Bayle’s fickle beings never undergo a change in substance, they themselves
have a durational existence that is subject to change in the way in which the
eternal existence of the underlying substance is not.
There still needs to be some explanation of how these mutable
modifications can be said to be affections of an unchanging substance that
also exist in that substance. I address this question later by appealing to a con-
ception in Spinoza of what it means to affect or to exist in substance that is
not entirely anticipated in the development of the notion of modes in Suárez

21 This so-​called “Letter on the Infinite” will be central to the discussion of Spinoza’s material

monism in c­ hapter 7.
194 The Metaphysics of the Material World

and Descartes.22 Before taking up this point, however, I consider another dis-
tinctive feature of Spinoza’s theory of substance that is reflected in his def-
inition of God as “absolutely infinite being, that is, substance consisting of
infinite attributes, of which each expresses infinite and eternal essence” (E
Idef6, G II.45).

6.1.2. Substance and Its Attributes

The claim that God has infinite attributes is central to Spinoza’s substance
monism. His demonstration that God is the only conceivable substance
depends on this claim as well as on his version of the ontological argument
for the existence of God (E Ip11d, G II.52–​53) and the result that different
substances cannot have the same attribute (E Ip5, G II.48). Since the ontolog-
ical argument shows that a God exists with all attributes, and since substances
cannot share attributes, there can be no substance other than God.23
An initial difficulty for this sort of monism may seem to be the fact that
Spinoza accepts Descartes’s view that thought and extension are conceptu-
ally irreducible attributes. Indeed, in commenting on an early draft of the
Ethics, a member of Spinoza’s Amsterdam circle, Simon de Vries, objects: “If
I should say that each substance has only one attribute, and if I had the idea
of two attributes, I could rightly conclude that, where there are two different
attributes, there are two different substances” (Ep VIII, February 24, 1663,
G IV.41). This objection is in line with Descartes’s own view that it follows
from the fact that thought and extension can be conceived completely on
their own apart from each other that a thinking thing and an extended thing
are really distinct substances.
In response to De Vries, Spinoza claims that “the more attributes I at-
tribute to a being the more I am compelled to attribute existence to it” (Ep IX,
February 1663(?), G IV.45). This response is related to the proposition in the
Ethics, “The more reality or being each thing has, the more attributes belong
to it” (Quo plus realitatis aut esse unaqueæque res habet, eo plura attributa ipsi
competunt) (E Ip9, G II.51). This proposition is said to follow simply from the
definition of attribute. The proposition itself is explicitly cited nowhere else
in the Ethics. Nonetheless, it implicitly backs two claims in this text, namely,

22 See §6.2.
23 But see the discussion in this subsection of Gueroult’s alternative reading of the argument for
Spinozistic monism.
 Metaphysical Themes from Descartes 195

that “the more being or reality [a thing] has, the more it has attributes that
express necessity, or eternity, and infinity” (E Ip10s, G II.52), and that the
intellect “infers more properties [of a thing] the more the definition of [that]
thing expresses reality, that is, the more reality the essence of the defined
thing involves” (E Ip16d, G II.60).
It may not seem to be entirely clear how this view in Spinoza addresses the
Cartesian objection that a substance can have only one principal attribute.
However, his point is ultimately that we must be able to conceive a substance
with more than one attribute since we can conceive of a substance that neces-
sarily exists and possesses all infinite reality—​and thus all attributes—​within
itself. In fact, Spinoza takes God to be precisely such a substance. Since God
is “absolutely infinite,” whatever “expresses essence and involves no negation”
must also be an attribute of God (E Idef6exp, G II.46). But thought and ex-
tension, as “infinite in their own kind,” do not involve negation, and thus are
equally attributes of God as substance.
In his letter, however, De Vries cites a passage from the draft of the Ethics
that suggests a somewhat different—​and, in a sense, more direct—​response
to his objection. In this passage, there is the claim that attributes that are
“really distinct” (realiter distincta) in the sense that they are conceived sep-
arately still do not “constitute two things [entia] or two diverse substances”
insofar as they “are found together in” one and the same substance (G IV.41).
Here the argument is not that we can conceive a substance that has all re-
ality, and thus all the attributes, but rather that all attributes must exist, and
so cannot exist apart from each other. As expanded in the published version
of the Ethics, this passage offers the intriguing argument that since attributes
can be completely conceived apart from other attributes, each attribute exists
necessarily, and so must exist together with all of the other attributes (see E
Ip10s, G II.52). In essence, Spinoza is rejecting the assumption—​central to
Descartes’s own argument for mind-​body distinctness—​that a real distinc-
tion tied to separate conceivability requires that the mutual separability of
the entities so conceived.24
There has been a vigorous debate in the literature between a “subjective
interpretation” of the distinction between Spinoza’s attributes, on which such
attributes are only “subjectively” or “ideally” distinct, and an “objective in-
terpretation” of the distinction, on which the attributes are distinct in reality,

24 On the somewhat controversial claim that Descartes takes a real distinction to require mutual

separability with respect to existence, see §4.1.2, after note 31.

196 The Metaphysics of the Material World

and thus objectively.25 On the side of the subjective interpretation is the fact
that Spinoza defines attribute as “what intellect perceives” as constituting
the essence of substance (E Iax4, G II.45), rather than simply as that which
constitutes the essence of substance. Yet on the side of the objective interpre-
tation is the fact that Spinoza takes as axiomatic that “a true idea must agree
with its object” (E Iax6, G II.45) and holds as well that the human mind has a
true and adequate idea of God’s essence, including the attributes that express
this essence (see E IIp47, G II.128).26
One way to start to settle this issue is by remembering that, in Suárezian
terms, Spinoza’s real distinction between attributes amounts to a distinction
of reason between different ways of conceiving one and the same substantial
res. Since the distinction here is merely a conceptual one, there is a need for
the reference in the definition of attribute to “what the intellect perceives of
substance.”27 Even so, Spinoza’s view here does not perfectly track Suárez’s.
Recall Suárez’s claim that a distinction of reason is one that employs different
“inadequate,” or incomplete, concepts of the same thing.28 In contrast, for
Spinoza each attribute is an adequate and self-​contained conception of the
divine essence.
It is perhaps difficult to set aside the Cartesian intuition that any distinc-
tion in reality between two conceptually self-​contained things must reflect
a distinction between substances. And in fact, there is a reading of Spinoza
on which he embraces this consequence. As I have presented his argument
for monism, Spinoza takes the existence of God as absolutely infinite sub-
stance to preclude the existence of any other substance. In his commentary
on the first part of the Ethics, however, Martial Gueroult has insisted that
the existence of the Spinozistic God not only does not preclude the exist-
ence of other substances, but actually requires the existence of an infinity
of such substances, one for each attribute.29 Gueroult takes the first eight

25 The locus classicus of the subjective interpretation is Wolfson 1934: I.142–​57. For a critique of

this interpretation that defends the objective interpretation, see Gueroult 1968: 50. One commen-
tator has claimed that “it is as certain as anything disputed in Spinoza’s Ethics can be, that Wolfson’s
interpretation of these passages [concerning the status of the attributes] in mistaken” (Donagan
1973: 171).
26 See the consideration of this debate in Shein 2009.
27 Cf. the following passage from the draft of the Ethics that Spinoza quoted to De Vries: “By sub-

stance I understand what is in itself and is conceived through itself, that is, whose concept does not
involve the concept of another thing. I understand the same by attribute, except that it is called at-
tribute in relation to the intellect, which attributes such and such a definite nature to substance” (Ep
IX, February 1663(?), G IV.46).
28 See §2.2.1, after note 30.
29 “The conception through itself [par soi] of the attributes, which founds their real distinction

and by which we have posited them previously as substances of one attribute, far from rendering
 Metaphysical Themes from Descartes 197

propositions of the Ethics to concern only “substances consisting of one at-

tribute alone,” which are not “absolutely infinite” but only “infinite in their
own kind.”30 These substances are subsequently identified with the attributes,
which as we have seen are said to be “really distinct” from each other. As
Gueroult understands it, however, the claim here really is that the attributes
are distinct substances.31 This result is supposed to be compatible with
Spinoza’s monism since the infinitely many substances of one attribute are
incorporated into an absolutely infinite substance. Gueroult insists that al-
though Spinoza’s monism precludes the existence of any substance outside
God, this doctrine nonetheless requires that God has within an infinite
number of really distinct substances that together constitute his essence.
Gueroult’s interpretation of Spinoza’s monism drew a critical response
from André Doz, who protested that “never in the Ethics has Spinoza ei-
ther established or wanted to establish that there are as many substances as
attributes” (Doz 1976: 221).32 However, Alan Donagan isolates what is per-
haps the most serious problem for Gueroult’s interpretation when he charges
that “it excludes every possible explanation of how the union of the really dis-
tinct substances of one attribute into an indivisible absolutely infinite being
can be necessary” (Donagan 1991: 21n18). This problem is exacerbated by
Gueroult’s own denial that Spinoza can allow for different substances of one
attribute to express one and the same divine essence.33
Recently A. D. Smith has insisted that Gueroult’s claim that God as abso-
lutely infinite substance consists of infinitely many substances of one attribute
has considerable support in the text of the Ethics. Smith further proposes that
Gueroult could have avoided the problem of divine unity simply by drop-
ping the “incompatibility thesis,” that is, the thesis that a substance with one

their union in one and the same substance impossible, is precisely what renders it possible, insofar
as no being can pertain to a substance as one of its constituents that is not conceived through itself ”
(Gueroult 1968: 161).
30 This point informs the remarks in Gueroult 1968: 107–​40. The distinction between being “abso-

lutely infinite” and only “infinite in its own kind” is from E Idef6exp, G II.46.
31 See the discussion in Gueroult 1968: 160–​76.
32 There is a response to Doz on Gueroult’s behalf in Dreyfus 1978, which itself drew a response in

Doz 1979–​80. Cf. the recent defense of Gueroult’s interpretation against Doz’s objections in Smith
2014. I have more to say presently about other aspects of Smith’s defense of Gueroult.
33 See, for instance, Gueroult’s claim: “Since each attribute (unumquodque) expresses a certain

essence of substance—​or the essence of a certain substance—​it is clear that it cannot by itself ex-
press the essence of the divine substance, which is constituted by an infinity of essences of substance”
(Gueroult 1968: 69). Gueroult’s own response to this problem is that different attributes “are abso-
lutely identical as to the cause (i.e., the causal act) by which each produces itself and produces all its
modes” (238). As Donagan correctly observes, however, this response “divides the causal act of sub-
stance from its essence in a way that is totally foreign to Spinoza” (Donagan 1973: 176).
198 The Metaphysics of the Material World

attribute cannot express both the essence of its particular attribute and the
essence of absolutely infinite substance. The conclusion here is that once this
thesis is set aside, “Gueroult’s interpretation has nothing to fear from the
issue of the unity of Spinoza’s God” (Smith 2014: 686).
Yet there remains something unsettling in the suggestion that substances
of one attribute express two distinct things: the essence as conceived by its
own attribute, on the one hand, and the distinct essence of absolutely infi-
nite substance, on the other. It seems that there needs to be some explana-
tion of why the expression of the one essence would require the expression
of the other essence.34 But there would be a straightforward explanation if
we suppose that the essence as conceived by the particular attribute is just
the same as the essence of absolutely infinite substance, with the only dif-
ference being in the way in which this single essence can be conceived. In
light of this explanation, we could say that a substance with one attribute,
say, extended substance, expresses the essence of absolutely infinite sub-
stance by expressing the same essence as conceived through the attribute of
extension. The “real distinction” of the attributes requires not that they con-
stitute really distinct substances—​as Gueroult originally insisted and Smith
maintains—​but only that they count as distinct ways of conceiving the same
substance, namely, God as absolutely infinite substance. Indeed, Spinoza
himself appears to indicate as much when he notes in the second part of the
Ethics that “the thinking substance and the extended substance is one and the
same substance [une eademque est substantia], which is now comprehended
under this attribute, now under that” (E Ip7s, G II.90).35
In the first chapter I emphasized the presence in Aristotle of two different
conceptions of substance: as the ultimate subject of predication/​inherence
(as represented particularly but not exclusively in the Categories), and as an

34 There is also the question of whether Smith’s suggestion that the essence as conceived by a partic-

ular attribute is distinct in reality from the essence of absolutely infinite substance creates problems
for the unity of the substances of one attribute. My counter-​suggestion is that the distinction of the
essences is a distinction between different ways of conceiving the same essence.
35 One problem with settling the dispute over whether distinct attributes express distinct essences

is that the Latin of Spinoza’s Ethics lacks both definite and indefinite articles. Thus, when Spinoza
says in this text that attributes express essence, it is not clear whether he is saying that they express a
particular substantial essence that is only infinite in its own kind, or whether he is saying that they
express the single substantial essence that is absolutely infinite. I am convinced by Smith’s argument
that Ethics Ipp31–​32 require the former sort of expression, whereas Ethics IIpp45–​47 require the
latter sort of expression (Smith 2014: 676–​81). However, I do not think there is a problem here since
the particular substantial essence is itself nothing other than the absolutely infinite substantial es-
sence as conceived in a particular way. Likewise, one can say that though extended substance and
thinking substance are distinct in conception, they are identical in reality since they are simply abso-
lutely infinite substance itself as conceived in different ways.
 Metaphysical Themes from Descartes 199

essence that is fundamental in the sense that it is not definable in terms of any
other essence (as represented primarily in the Metaphysics).36 The latter con-
ception seems to be most relevant to Spinoza’s understanding of the divine
attributes. For he defines attributes in terms of what is conceived to consti-
tute an essence that is fundamental in the sense that it is the essence of some-
thing that can be conceived through itself alone.37
When we move from attributes to modes, however, it might seem that
Spinoza needs to rely on the Aristotelian conception of substance as subject of
inherence. I have previously noted his definition of modes as “the affections
of substance, or that which is in another through which it is also conceived”
(substantia affectiones, sive id, quod in alio est, per quod etiam concipitur)
(E Idef5, G II.45). As Bayle understands it, this definition relies on a
Cartesian—​ and previously scholastic and ultimately Aristotelian—​
understanding of modes that is bound up with the notion of inherence in
a subject. We have seen that the story cannot be so straightforward. There
is the initial fact that Aristotle himself does not clearly deploy anything like
the Cartesian category of mode. Moreover, the Cartesian conception of a
mode as inhering in a subject involves a departure from an initial Suárezian
conception of inherence itself as a mode. Nonetheless, Bayle’s discussion
still leaves us with the question of whether Spinoza himself takes a mode to
be something that inheres in God as its subject. To address this question,
we need to consider more directly, and in its own terms, Spinoza’s account
of modes.

6.2. The Nature of Modes

6.2.1. Inherence, Conception, Causation

The formal definition of mode in the Ethics that I have cited previously ap-
peals to two conditions: a mode (1) “is in another” and (2) is conceived
through another. Let us call (1) the inherence condition and (2) the conception
condition. An initial question is how these two are related. On one view in
the literature, represented most prominently in the work of Michael Della

36 See §1.2.2.
37 See again the definition of attribute as “what the intellect perceives of substance, as constituting
its essence” (E Idef4, G II.45) and of substance as “that whose concept does not require the concept of
another thing, from which it must be formed” (E Idef3, G II.45).
200 The Metaphysics of the Material World

Rocca, the two conditions are co-​extensional, thus supporting the following
biconditional: x inheres in y if and only if x is conceived through y.38 There is
no controversy over the claim that Spinoza accepted the inference from in-
herence to conception (if x inheres in y, then x is conceived through y). After
all, the claim that the conception of a mode that inheres requires the concep-
tion of the substance in which it inheres is central to Descartes’s account of
modes in the Principles, and there is every reason to think that Spinoza him-
self embraced such a claim.39 More problematic, however, is the view that
Spinoza accepted the inference from conception to inherence (if x is con-
ceived through y, then x inheres in y).
The problems here can be illustrated by the discussion in the second
part of the Ethics of ideas of modes by which the human body is affected
by external bodies. Spinoza argues there that such ideas must concep-
tually “involve” the nature of their external bodily causes as well as the
nature of the human body (E IIp16, G II.103). The demonstration of
the proposition appeals to the previous claim that “all modes by which
a body is affected by another body follow both from the nature of the
body affected and at the same time from the nature of the affecting body”
(E IIp13s, ax", G II.99). Given the axiom from the first part of the Ethics
that the cognition of an effect involves cognition of its cause, it follows
that ideas of modes by which a body is affected must involve ideas of
the affecting bodies (E IIp16d, G II.104). If Spinoza held that concep-
tion implies inherence, he would be committed to the conclusion that
the modes of the affected body also inhere in the affecting bodies. Yet it
seems clear that the modes are affections only of the human body, and
not of the external causes.
In response to this consideration, Della Rocca proposes on Spinoza’s be-
half that the mode that is conceived through external bodies as well as the
human body can be said to be inhere partly in the external bodies and partly
in the human body. In order to deny this, according to Della Rocca, Spinoza
would have to violate the Principle of Sufficient Reason (aka PSR), a central
feature of his system. This is so because he would have to allow for the case
in which something that is partly conceived in terms of another does not in-
here in any way in that other. But then “this difference [between conception
and inherence] would seem to be a brute fact, in violation of the PSR. Given

38 See Della Rocca 2008: 41–​47.

39 Indeed, Spinoza seems to rely on the inference from inherence to conception in E Ip4d, G
II.47–​48.
 Metaphysical Themes from Descartes 201

Spinoza’s deep aversion to brute facts, it behooves us to see Spinoza as not

drawing this ultimately arbitrary distinction” (Della Rocca 2008: 45).
This argument would perhaps be decisive if the distinction between what is
conceived through and also inheres in another, on the one hand, and what is
conceived through but does not inhere in another, on the other, were brute or
arbitrary. But why not hold that there is a reason for this distinction: namely,
and simply, that some things are conceived through something in which they
inhere, whereas others are conceived through something in which they do not
inhere. The modes of the human body that involve external causes must be con-
ceived through both that body and those causes. However, the way in which
they are conceived to exist through the human body differs from the way in
which they are conceived to exist through the external causes. I would suggest,
then, that we read the conception condition for modes as requiring that we con-
ceive a mode through another as inhering in that other. This suggestion gives
priority to the inherence condition over the conception condition: the latter is to
be understood in terms of the former.
Don Garrett has offered an alternative to this suggestion. In a note that Della
Rocca highlights, Garrett proposes that Spinoza restricts the inference from
conception to inherence, allowing for it

only in cases where y is completely conceived through x. For though a finite

mode may be partly conceived through the other finite modes that are partial
causes of it, it does not follow that it is in those finite modes. Rather, it is in the
substance through which it—​as well as the finite modes that help to cause it—​
may be completely conceived. (Garrett 2002: 155n21)

Della Rocca responds to this proposal by protesting that this restriction runs
afoul of Spinoza’s attempt to follow the PSR wherever it leads (Della Rocca
2008: 44). However, my reservation is that the restriction does not yield a
sufficiently general conception of a mode. Though it is true that the modes
are completely conceived through substance, modes of the human body that
involve external causes are not so conceived through that body, even though
they are affections—​that is to say, modes—​of it. Yet we need a conception of
modes that covers both kinds of cases. For Spinoza, what seems to be crucial
for being a mode is not being completely conceived through another but,
again, being conceived through another as something that inheres in that
other. There can be no question of incomplete or partial conception here
since something must be conceived either as inhering in something else or
202 The Metaphysics of the Material World

not; in other words, it must be conceived to be either a mode or substance

(the essence of which is conceived in terms of some attribute).40
There is admittedly some skepticism in the literature that Spinozistic
modes can be understood in terms of the notion of inherence. Most notably,
in his pioneering study of the metaphysics of Spinoza’s Ethics, Edwin Curley
rejects the claim that Spinoza followed Descartes in holding that modes in-
here in substance. According to Curley, “Spinoza’s modes are, prima facie, of
the wrong logical type to be related to substance in the same way Descartes’s
modes are related to substance, for they are particular things (E Ip25c),
not qualities.” Whereas qualities are predicated of a substance, the notion
of predication does not seem to apply to the particular things that Spinoza
counts as modes. As Curley notes: “What it would mean to say that one thing
is predicated of another is a mystery that needs solving” (Curley 1969: 18).
But instead of solving this mystery, Curley attempts to dissolve it when he
proposes that Spinoza avoids the whole problem by holding that particular
bodies, for instance, are modes in the sense that they are causal effects that
derive from the divine attribute of extension, which is identified in turn with
the set of basic scientific laws that govern the material world.41
Curley offers this interpretation as a way of responding to Bayle’s critique
of Spinoza. However, a possible response to Curley is indicated by Bayle’s
own objection to a certain “apologist for Spinoza”42 that God has only an in-
telligible extension” that is not the same as “the extension of bodies that we
see and imagine.” Bayle’s objection is that since this intelligible extension is
merely an idea, “it cannot furnish the stuff or the matter of the extension
formally existing outside the understanding” (DHC, “Spinoza,” rem. DD,
IV.270a). So also, insofar as the laws with which Curley identifies Spinoza’s
attribute of extension are distinguished from concrete material objects, they
cannot “furnish the matter” of which these objects are composed.
Instead of developing these difficulties further, however, I want to em-
phasize issues for Curley that concern the conception of the affections of the
human body that involve external bodily causes. It seems the Curley must
either follow Della Rocca in saying that the affections are partially “in” their

40 Garrett suggests at one point that Spinoza is committed to the conclusion that a mode is to some

degree not in its subject insofar as it is the result of external causes (Garrett 2002: 140). But again,
Spinoza himself speaks of externally produced modes of the human body as affecting that body
rather than its external causes.
41 For the view that the relation of mode to substance in Spinoza is causal, see Curley 1969: 19; for

the identification of divine attributes with basic laws of nature, see Curley 1969: 49.
42 Identified in a note as Abraham Kuffelaer (IV.204a, n172); see Kuffelaer 1984: 222.
 Metaphysical Themes from Descartes 203

external causes (just insofar as they are partially caused by such causes), or
follow Garrett in saying that they are only in that on which they completely
(causally) depend. But both options seem to me to fail to fit Spinoza’s own
view of the affections, according to which they modify the human body but
not their external causes. Better, I propose, to take Spinoza to hold that these
modes do not modify their external causes simply because they do not inhere
in those causes, and so are not conceived through those causes as inhering
in them.
Nonetheless, I think it must be granted Curley that Spinoza’s God bears a
special causal relation to his modifications. This is clear from the end of the
first part of the Ethics, where Spinoza identifies God’s essence with the power
(potentia) that produces all that follows from that essence (E Ip34, G II.76),
and then argues that modes that express God’s essence in a certain and de-
terminate way thereby express “in a certain and determinate way the power
of God, which is the cause of all things” (E Ip36d, G II.77). Thus, the fact that
modes express God’s essence is tied explicitly to the fact that they express his
causal power.
One could still ask what it means to say that modes “express the power
of God.”43 It cannot be the case that this consists simply in the modes being
effects of this power, given that the argument at the end of the first part is that
“some effect must follow” from modal expressions of God’s power (E Ip36d,
G II.77). Thus, what expresses the power of God must itself exercise causal
power. Moreover, Spinoza indicates that the causal power that modes exer-
cise is in fact God’s power. This is reflected in his claim in the fourth part of
the Ethics that “the power by which singular things, and consequently man,
preserves his being is the very power of God, or Nature [Deus, sive Natura]
(by Ip24c), not insofar as it is infinite, but insofar as it can be explained by
the actual human essence (IIIp7)” (E IVp4d, G II.213). The actual essence
invoked here is the conatus by which singular things produce “what follows
necessarily from their determinate nature (Ip29)” (IIIp7, G II.146). So to say
that a certain effect derives from the conatus of a singular thing is simply to
say that it derives from God’s power as “explained by”—​or manifested in—​
that conatus.
Once again, the example of the external-​cause-​involving modes of the
human body introduces a complication insofar as such modes do not derive

43 The classic discussion of Spinoza’s understanding of the notion of expression is Deleuze 1968.

For a more recent and technical analysis of this notion, see Gartenberg 2017.
204 The Metaphysics of the Material World

from the conatus of the human body alone. The indication in Spinoza is that
these modes cannot be attributed to God’s power just insofar as he constitutes
the essence of that body. Rather, the modes must derive from God insofar
as he constitutes not only that essence but also the essences of the external
causes.44 This follows from the fact that God can be only an “adequate” cause
of an effect, that is, a cause through the nature of which alone the effect can
be conceived (E IIIdef1, G II.139). Since effects of the human body that de-
rive just from the conatus of that body can be understood through its essence
alone, God can be said to have those effects just insofar as he constitutes that
essence. Yet since affections of the human body that involve external causes
cannot be understood through the essence of that body alone, God cannot
be said to have those affections just insofar as he constitutes that essence.
Rather, the effects can be attributed to God only insofar as he constitutes the
essences that together allow for complete understanding of those effects, up
to and including the essence of the whole of infinite nature itself.45
Yet whether or not the modes can be explained simply in terms of the es-
sence of the modes in which they immediately inhere, God can be said to
have all of them. This is in line with Spinoza’s claim that particular things
are “affections of God’s attributes, or [sive] modes by which God’s attributes
are expressed in a certain and determinate way” (E Ip25c, G II.68). My
suggestion is that such things are affections, or certain and determinate
manifestations, of God’s power as conceived in terms of some attribute. This
gives us the link between modes and causal power that Curley emphasizes,
while also retaining the notion that a mode inheres in, or is an affection of,
what it modifies.
One reason to retain the notion of inherence is to fully accommodate
Spinoza’s claim that “God is the immanent cause [causa immanens] of all
things, and not the transeunt [transiens]” (E Ip18, G II.63).46 This claim

44 I am applying here to the case of the human body what Spinoza says in Ethics IIp11c about the

relation of God to ideas in the human mind. There he distinguishes between the “adequate” ideas in
the mind, which can be attributed to God “insofar as he is explained through the nature of the human
mind, or insofar as he constitutes the essence of the human mind,” and the “partial” or “inadequate”
ideas in the mind, which can be attributed to God “not only insofar as he constitutes the nature of the
human mind,” but insofar as he also has the idea of another thing together with the human mind” (G
II.94–​95). The application is warranted, of course, by Spinoza’s claim that “the order and connection
of ideas is the same as the order and connection of things” (E IIp7, G II.89).
45 This last point explains the emphasis in Spinoza on the fact that God has effects that do not

follow from the natures of particular things only insofar as he is infinite.

46 This is in line with Nadler’s conclusion, with respect to Curley’s account of Spinozistic modes,

that Spinoza’s insistence that God is an immanent cause “presents a fundamental problem with his
interpretation” (Nadler 2008: 61).
 Metaphysical Themes from Descartes 205

draws on the basic division in the scholastic texts of Spinoza’s time of effi-
cient causes into immanent and transeunt.47 The previously cited case of the
external-​cause-​involving affections of the human body provides a clear ex-
ample of transeunt efficient causation. In this case, the external causes pro-
duce something that does not inhere in them. In contrast, God can be said to
be an immanent cause simply because he produces something that inheres
in or is an affection of himself. In his 1663 letter to Meyer, Spinoza implicitly
draws on this contrast when he speaks of modes that are infinite “by the force
of the cause in which they inhere” (vi causæ, cui inhærent) (Ep XII, G IV.61).48
Since God can be only an immanent cause, according to Spinoza, all of his
effects must inhere in him, that is to say, must be particular determinations of
his own power. On my reading of Spinoza, God’s immanent causation turns
out to be a kind of self-​affection, whether the affection derives from God’s
acting insofar as he constitutes the essence of a particular thing, or rather in-
sofar as he constitutes the essence of this thing together with the essence that
comprehends infinitely many external causes.49

6.2.2. Cartesianism and Infinite Modes

It is commonly claimed that Spinoza’s understanding of a mode in terms

of inherence in substance is drawn from Descartes.50 And indeed, we have
seen that in his Replies to Objections II, Descartes did suggest such an un-
derstanding when he stipulated that substance is “that in which all things are
immediately, as in a subject, that is, all properties, or qualities, or attributes”
(AT VII.161).51 Spinoza repeats this definition in the summary of portions

47 As shown in Zylstra 2018: ch. 4, Spinoza is drawing in particular on this distinction in the pop-

ular logic manuals of the Dutch scholastic Franco Burgerdijk (1590–​1635) and his student Adriaan
Heereboord (1614–​1659). With Zylstra, I prefer “transeunt” to Curley’s translation of “transitive”
in Spinoza 1985–​2016: I.428, since the latter is more clearly paired with “intransitive” than with
“immanent.”
48 I consider the distinctively Spinozistic notion of “infinite modes” initially in §6.2.2, and more

extensively in §7.2, with respect in particular to infinite modes of extension.

49 Thus, the same mode that affects the human body by means of external causes can be under-

stood to affect God by means of his own immanent causation. This point is connected to the implica-
tion in Spinoza that ideas of bodily affections that are inadequate in us are adequate in God; see, e.g.,
E IIp36d, G II.118.
50 See Bennett’s claim that Curley’s “radical” thesis that Spinozistic modes are not properties of sub-

stance “credits Spinoza . . . with silently depriving ‘mode’ of half of the meaning it had in Descartes’s
idiolet and in the Latin language in general” (Bennett 1984: 93).
51 See the discussion of this passage in §4.1.1, after note 17. Of course, Descartes’s notion of at-

tribute differs from that of Spinoza.

206 The Metaphysics of the Material World

of Descartes’s Principles that he published in 1663 (DDP Idef4, G I.150), and

as we know, in the Ethics itself he introduces an inherence condition in his
definition of a mode. In suggesting that modes are to be defined in terms of
inherence, Spinoza is adopting an understanding of modes in Descartes that
distinguishes him from Suárez. For as we know, Suárez was concerned to dis-
tinguish the relation of inherence, which holds between distinct res, from the
more immediate relation that a mode bears to the res it modifies.52 Spinoza
had even less reason than Descartes did to adopt the Suárezian mode of in-
herence insofar he held that there is only one genuine—​that is, substantial—​
res, namely, divine substance/​attributes, with everything else being nothing
other than a mode of that res.
I have noted that Descartes further deviated from Suárez in allowing for
the possibility that modes have modifications of their own. As Suárez defines
them, modes must modify something that “has of itself its own independent
reality intrinsically and entitatively” (DM VII.2.6, I.263ab), and so cannot
themselves be subjects of modes.53 In contrast, Descartes assumes that a
mode, such as motion, has a concrete reality that allows it to serve as the sub-
ject of modifications, such as its determination.54 It is clear from Spinoza’s
discussion of externally induced affections of the human body that he also
holds that modes have a sufficiently robust sort of reality to serve as subjects
of other modes. Indeed, the case for saying that modes have such a reality is
even stronger in Spinoza than it is in Descartes. I have cited Spinoza’s claim
in his 1663 letter to Meyer that “we conceive the existence of Substance to
be entirely different from the existence of Modes” (G IV.54). For Descartes,
both created substances and their modes (as well as any modifications of
those modes) equally have a successive temporal duration that is divisible
into parts.55 According to Spinoza, however, only modes can have this kind
of duration. In contrast, substance must have an eternal existence that is in
no way subject to division. Insofar as the subject of modes has a successive
durational existence, then, that subject must itself be a mode. And this, for
Spinoza, is in fact the case with respect to the immediate subject of the exter-
nally induced affections of the human body.

52 See §2.2.2; cf. §4.1.2.

53 See §2.2.2, after note 59.
54 See this point in Descartes’s exchange with Hobbes considered in §4.1.1, after note 10.
55 This is clear, of course, from Descartes’s famous claim in Meditation III that as a finite thing,

he depends at each moment of his existence on some sustaining cause distinct from himself; see AT
VII.48–​49.
 Metaphysical Themes from Descartes 207

The implication in Spinoza that modes have a distinctive kind of reality is

reinforced by his claim that they have their own essences distinct from the
essence of the substance they all modify. In the Ethics, the argument for this
claim draws on the stipulation that what belongs to the essence of a thing is
“that which, being given, the thing is necessarily posited and which, being
taken away, the thing is necessarily taken away; or that without which the
thing can neither be nor be conceived, and which can neither be nor be con-
ceived without the thing” (E IIdef2, G II.84). Of course, for Spinoza sub-
stance is necessarily posited if its mode is posited, and that mode can neither
be nor be conceived without substance. What shows that substance does not
belong to the essence of a mode, however, is the fact that it can be posited
even if the mode is not, and can both be and be conceived without the mode
(E IIp10s2, G II.93–​94). To be sure, Suárez allows that modes have their own
essence in a broad sense that serves to distinguish them in reality from the res
they modify.56 However, he also indicates that the reality the essence confers
on modes is too diminished for the modes themselves to serve as subjects of
other modes. And though Descartes allows for modes of modes, he does not
take modes to be distinctive in having an essence that confers on them du-
rational existence. The distinction between substantial and modal subjects is
thus not as radical in Descartes as it is in Spinoza.
Related to the differences between Suárez and Descartes over modes of
modes is their disagreement with respect to the question of whether modes
can be genuine causes. Since modes lack sufficient reality to be subjects of
modes, according to Suárez, they also lack sufficient reality to be efficient
causes, that is, principles that “inflow” the distinctive sort of being they
possess into another. Yet Descartes indicates that surfaces, which are mere
bodily modes, are the sole bodily causes of our sensations of bodies.57 Here
again, Spinoza follows Descartes and departs from Suárez in taking the ex-
ternal bodily causes of affections of the human body to be themselves modes.
If my reading of Spinoza is correct, however, his deviation from Suárez is
once again more radical than Descartes’s. For on this reading, Spinoza holds
not only that modes can be causes, but also that they must be causes. Recall
again the argument toward the end of the first part of the Ethics for the con-
clusion that “nothing exists from whose nature some effect does not follow”
(E Ip36, G II.77). As I see it, this argument relies on the fact that modes that

56 See §2.2.2, after note 59.

57 For the contrast between Suárez and Descartes on this point, see §4.3.1, after note 73.
208 The Metaphysics of the Material World

Less Reality More Reality

Suárez’s Descartes’s Spinoza’s Suárez’s

modes modes modes real accidents
none separable none separable none separable all separable
from subject from subject from subject from subject
none causally some causally all causally some causally
efficacious efficacious efficacious efficacious
none subject some subject all subject all subject
of modes of modes of modes of modes
none ultimate some ultimate durational all can be ultimate
subject of modes subject of modes subject of modes

Figure 6.1 Modes in Suárez, Descartes, and Spinoza.

express God’s essence must thereby be affections of his power, and so must
themselves have causal efficacy.
I have claimed that Descartes’s modes can be positioned between Suárezian
modes and real accidents.58 But on this same continuum, Spinoza’s modes
can be positioned between Descartes’s modes and Suárez’s real accidents
(see Figure 6.1). Like Descartes and Suárez’s modes, but unlike Suárez’s real
accidents, Spinoza’s modes are inseparable from their subject. Yet Spinoza’s
modes have a more robust reality than Descartes’s, as indicated by the fact
that that all of the former must be causally efficacious, and that some of them
can be the ultimate durational subject of other modes.59
It is clear, then, that Spinoza’s modes cannot simply be equated with the
modes that Descartes posited, just as Descartes’s modes cannot simply be
identified with the modes that Suárez introduced. However, there is another
important element of Spinoza’s theory of modes that has no precedent in the
previous development of this notion, namely, his view of “infinite modes,”
which as he claimed in a passage I previously highlighted, are infinite “by
the force of the cause in which they inhere” (G IV.61). The indication in the
Ethics is that this novel sort of mode is required to provide some sort of link
between God’s absolutely infinite and eternal existence and the limited and

58See §4.3.1, after note 77.

59As I indicate in §7.1.2, around note 12, the fact that we can conceive of quantitative modes as ul-
timate durational subjects is for Spinoza a source of the temptation to conceive of quantity itself as a
substance composed of substantial parts.
 Metaphysical Themes from Descartes 209

durational existence of finite things.60 Thus, in the first part of this text, the
discussion of infinite modes is placed between the claim that the existence
of God’s substance/​attributes is identical to his eternal essence (E Ip20, G
II.64) and the claim that a “singular thing,” or whatever “has a finite and de-
terminate existence,” can be determined to exist and to act only by other sin-
gular things (E Ip28, G II.69). Midway between eternal existence and finite
and determinate existence are effects of God that follow immediately from
his attributes, and thus do not have the sort of existence that other singular
things possess. In particular, Spinoza begins with the claim in proposition 21
that anything that “follows from [sequuntur] the absolute nature of any of the
attributes of God” must itself be “eternal and infinite” (G II.65). Though his
actual demonstration of this assertion is rather convoluted, the underlying
reductio is fairly straightforward.61 For Spinoza, a finite thing that belongs
to an attribute can be limited only by another finite thing belonging to that
same attribute (as stipulated in E Idef2, G II.45). But in the case where a finite
thing follows immediately from the absolute nature of some divine attribute,
rather than from that attribute as modified by a finite thing, only this nature
could limit it. Since anything that limits another must itself be finite, in this
case the divine attribute must be finite. But such a consequence is absurd,
given that an attribute must express an infinite essence, which it could not do
if it were finite.62 Thus, any mode that follows immediately from the absolute
nature of some divine attribute must be free of the sort of limitations that fi-
nite singular things possess, and so be infinite and eternal; qed.
The notion that these infinite modes are eternal requires some explana-
tion. I have noted the claim in Spinoza that the existence of substance is
eternal in a sense that precludes any sort of divisible duration.63 However,
he holds that the infinite modes that follow immediately from the absolute
nature of the divine attributes are eternal merely in the sense that they “must

60 For a recognition of this mediating role, see Kolakowski 1959. However, the argument in this

article, in support of Bayle’s own view, is that this attempt at mediation is a failure.
61 Here I follow the elegant summary of the reductio in Donagan 1988: 103.
62 As we know, Spinoza defines an attribute as something that “intellect perceives of substance, as

constituting its essence” (E Idef4, G II.45). Later he establishes that substance is by nature infinite (E
Ip8d, G II.49), and thus that an attribute “expresses eternal and infinite essence” (E Ip11, G II.52).
63 Here I favor the “Hardinist” reading of Spinoza, on which in the case of substance/​attributes

he accepts a Platonic sort of eternity that excludes time, over the “Knealist” reading, on which he
restricts himself to an Aristotelian sort of eternity that involves only unlimited duration. See Hardin
1980, for the former, and Kneale 1973 and Donagan 1988: 107–​13, for the latter. But a distinction of
my view from Hardin’s is indicated in note 64.
210 The Metaphysics of the Material World

always exist” (semper . . . existere debuerunt) (E Ip21, G II.65).64 The indi-

cation here is that these infinite modes are eternal simply in the sense that
they have an unlimited durational existence. This would be in line with the
view, which he expresses in correspondence with Meyer, that the existence of
modes in general is distinguished from the existence of substance/​attributes
by the fact that only the former involves a divisible duration.
In addition to infinite modes that follow immediately from divine
attributes, Spinoza posits infinite modes that follow “from some attribute
of God insofar as it is modified by a modification that, through the same
attribute, exists necessarily and is infinite” (E Ip22, G II.66). Following
standard practice, I call these two kinds of infinite modes “immediate infi-
nite modes” and “mediate infinite modes,” respectively.65 In the Ethics itself
Spinoza provides examples only of immediate infinite modes, indicating that
the “Idea of God” (idea Dei) is the immediate infinite mode of thought (E
Ip21, G II.65–​66), and “motion and rest” (motus et quies) the corresponding
immediate infinite mode of extension (E Ip32c2, G II.73). No example is ex-
plicitly provided in this text of a mediate infinite mode.66 The Ethics therefore
offers precious little guidance to the reader who is attempting to determine
what precisely Spinozistic infinite modes could be.
However, we can start with (only in order to deviate later from) an influ-
ential interpretation of Spinozistic infinite modes. In particular, Gueroult
has insisted that the distinction between immediate and mediate infinite
modes consists in the distinction between “the universe of eternal essences,”
on the one hand, and “the universe of existences,” on the other (Gueroult
1968: 321–​22).67 As Gueroult sees it, “Spinoza conceives only two modes per
attribute, since outside of essences and existences, we cannot conceive any-
thing else” (319).

64 I take this passage to provide a counterexample to the claim in Hardin (1980: 130–​32) that infi-

nite modes possess an atemporal sort of eternity.

65 Spinoza himself did not refer to the infinite modes in this way, though he did distinguish modes

that follow from the absolute nature of a divine attribute “immediately” from those that so follow “by
some mediating modification” (E Ip23d, G II.67).
66 “Explicitly provided”: Beyssade 1994 finds some evidence in E Vp36d that the “infinite Love by

which God loves himself ” is a mediate infinite mode that follows from the Idea of God as the imme-
diate infinite mode of thought (G II.302). However, Spinoza nowhere offers this “infinite love” as an
example of a mediate infinite mode, and it is difficult to see how it could correspond to “the face of the
whole universe,” the one example that Spinoza does offer in correspondence. For an extended anal-
ysis of this example with respect to the attribute of extension, see §7.2.2.
67 Gueroult’s interpretation has had a considerable influence, as indicated by the discussions of

the infinite modes in De Dijn 1977: 337–​44 (which cites Gueroult); Friedman 1986: 386–​90, 402–​03
(which cites De Dijn but not Gueroult); and Nadler 2012: 232–​35 (which cites Gueroult).
 Metaphysical Themes from Descartes 211

Yet on this last point, Gueroult’s undeniably elegant interpretation runs up

against Spinoza’s own theoretical commitments. We have seen that Spinoza
insisted toward the end of the first part of the Ethics that some effect must
follow from each thing that expresses God’s power. Since the mediate infinite
mode is such an expression, some effect must follow from it. But according
to Spinoza, any mode that follows either immediately from the absolute na-
ture of a divine attribute or mediately from some modification that so follows
must itself be something that “exists necessarily and is infinite” (E Ip23, G
II.66). Thus, some mode must follow from the mediate infinite mode that
is infinite and has some other mode that follows from it and is infinite, and
so on without end. Not only is it the case, pace Gueroult, that there are more
than two infinite modes for each attribute; in addition, Spinoza’s system
requires infinitely many such modes.68
Moreover, in the case of the material world, at least, it is difficult to see how
Spinoza’s own example of an immediate infinite mode—​namely, motion-​
and-​rest—​could be identified with “the universe of essences,” as Gueroult
would have it.69 If this mode is to play a role in Spinoza’s physics, as surely
it must, it seems that it should be identified rather with some fundamental
yet concrete feature of existing bodies that serves to explain their physical
interactions.70 In order to work my way toward an account of this feature,
though, I need to start with a more general consideration of Spinozistic ex-
tension. It is admittedly tempting simply to identify the latter with the ex-
tension that Descartes takes to constitute the nature of material substance,
as Bayle indeed did. Nevertheless, the relations between the two turn out to
be complex. We have seen that though Spinoza’s conception of modes draws
on Cartesian material, it also includes elements foreign to Descartes’s own
system. Something very similar, I will argue, is true with respect to Spinoza’s

68 Here I follow the view in Melamed 2013: 119–​20.

69 It is perhaps easier to see how the idea of God—​Spinoza’s example of an immediate infinite mode
of thought—​could be identified with the universe of ideas of bodily essences. But presumably this
mode is an idea of motion-​and-​rest. I suspect that there are some tensions here, but in line with the
emphasis in this book, I set these aside in order to focus on Spinoza’s view of how motion-​and-​rest fits
into his account of the material world.
70 I take the fact that the infinite modes of extension need to be concrete features of the material

world to be in some tension with the view, popular in the literature, that laws of nature are infi-
nite modes. Such a view derives primarily from Curley 1969: 54–​79; see also Curley 1988: 45–​47.
For indications of the popularity of this view, see Yovel 1991: 80–​85; Garrett 1994: 89; and Lin
2006: 326n19. Here I am inclined to Gabbey’s judgment that the identification of infinite modes with
laws of nature is “a category mistake” insofar as, for instance, “the laws of motion and rest cannot be
‘motion and rest’ ” (2008: 46).
212 The Metaphysics of the Material World

conceptions of the attribute of extension and its immediate infinite mode,

motion-​and-​rest.

6.3. From Extension to Motion-​and-​Rest

6.3.1. The Critique of Cartesian Extension

As we know, one reason for Bayle’s rejection of Spinoza’s identification of

God with extended substance is that the latter is merely a collection or aggre-
gate of really distinct parts.71 The underlying assumption here is that Spinoza
is committed to Descartes’s account of this substance in terms of a divisible
continuous quantity. And as we also know, Descartes indeed suggests that an
extended substance—​that is, a body-​taken-​in-​general—​is a mere sum of its
really distinct substantial parts.72 But the question here is whether Spinoza
conceived of extended substance in the same manner.
An immediate reason to think that Spinoza did not conceive of extended
substance in terms of mere quantity derives from his remarks in correspond-
ence toward the end of his life with the German polymath Ehrenfried Walther
von Tschirnhaus (1651–​1708).73 Tschirnhaus opens the relevant exchange by
asking how Spinoza can claim to demonstrate a priori the existence of bodies
with particular shapes and motions, given that “there is nothing of this kind
to be found in Extension, taken in the absolute sense” (Ep LXXX, May 2,
1676, G IV.331). He was thinking here of the proposition in the Ethics that
“from the necessity of the divine nature, an infinity of infinite modes (that
is, all that can fall under infinite intellect) must follow” (E Ip16, G II.60).74
What, Tschirnhaus asks, is the demonstration that from the necessity of the
divine nature an infinity of particular bodies and their modifications must
follow.

71 See the discussion of this argument in §1.1.2.

72 As indicated by the discussion throughout c­hapter 5 of Descartes’s pluralist conception of
body-​taken-​in-​general.
73 For background on Tschirnhaus, see Winter 1959. For alternative readings of Spinoza’s exchange

with Tschirnhaus, see Matheron 1991 and Peterman 2012. I follow neither Matheron’s view that we
are to understand Spinoza’s critique of Descartes in terms of his emphasis on the deducibility of laws
of nature, nor Peterman’s view that this critique involves a rejection of the claim that bodies are prop-
erly conceived in terms of three-​dimensional extension. For reasons to question the focus on laws of
nature, see note 70. For a further consideration of the view in Peterman, see §7.1.2.
74 This is indicated by a follow-​up letter from Tschirnhaus in this exchange, in which he refers to

this proposition as “almost the most important proposition of the first book of your Treatise” (Ep
LXXXII, June 23, 1676, G IV.334).
 Metaphysical Themes from Descartes 213

In a response to the letter from Tschirnhaus, sent a mere three days after
receipt, Spinoza initially claims that since it is impossible to provide the
demonstration from “Extension as Descartes conceives it,” namely, as “qui-
escent mass” (molem quisecentem), it follows that “the Cartesian principles
of natural things are useless, not to say absurd” (Ep LXXXI, May 5, 1676, G
IV.332).75 In return, Tschirnhaus readily grants that “extension as Descartes
conceives it” cannot provide a basis for the demonstration insofar as partic-
ular bodies derive not from “inert matter” but in an inconceivable manner
from “God as mover” (Ep LXXXII, June 23, 1676, G IV.334).
On this point Spinoza and Tschirnhaus are closely tracking Descartes’s
own position. This is clear from Descartes’s correspondence toward the
end of his life with Henry More, to which both Tschirnhaus and Spinoza no
doubt had access.76 In his final letter of this exchange, Descartes concedes to
More that “if matter is left to itself and receives no impulse from elsewhere it
will remain entirely still.” However, he adds that “it is impelled by God, who
conserves as much motion or translation in it as he placed in it in the begin-
ning” (August 1649, AT V.404).77 Thus, on Descartes’s view it is indeed im-
possible to demonstrate the existence of particular bodies from matter “left
to itself,” which can be only an undifferentiated quantity of indefinite size.78
But though he recognizes that Spinoza differs from Descartes on this
point, Tschirnhaus persists in requesting from his correspondent a posi-
tive conception of extension that does allow for the relevant demonstration.
In his final letter of the exchange, Spinoza offers very little: he repeats that
“Descartes badly defined matter through Extension,” and then claims that
matter must be defined instead “through an attribute that expresses eternal

75 But cf. Peterman’s claim that Spinoza’s remarks show that he “does not think that Extension as

Descartes understands it can yield the variety of bodies no matter what is done to it or added to it”
(2012: 41). I take this claim to overlook the significance of Spinoza’s view that Descartes identifies
matter with “quiescent mass.”
76 The relevant portions of this correspondence are included in Clerselier’s collection of Descartes’s

Lettres, and in particular, in the first volume of this collection, published in 1657. There are places
in his 1663 summary of Descartes’s Principles where Spinoza seems clearly to be drawing on views
in this correspondence. See, for instance, the discussion of the relation of God’s power to extension in
DPP IIp2s, G I.188; cf. Descartes to More, April 15, 1649, AT V.343.
77 More’s objection was that given the view that matter left by itself is at rest, its motion would be

something “violent” that destroys the “natural mode” of resting (July 23, 1649, AT V.381–​82). In re-
sponse, Descartes concedes that matter without an external impulse is at rest, but denies the applica-
bility of the scholastic distinction between violent and natural change to the case of the introduction
of motion in matter.
78 Recall here Descartes’s reference in the correspondence with More to “a continuous body of in-

determinate magnitude, or indefinite, in which nothing beyond extension is considered” (February

5, 1659, AT V.269), previously cited in §4.2.1, at note 51.
214 The Metaphysics of the Material World

and infinite essence.” But instead of showing how this point allows for the
demonstration of particular bodies that Tschirnhaus is requesting, Spinoza
closes by noting that he “perhaps, if life endures, will some time discuss this
with you more clearly” (Ep LXIII, July 15, 1676, G IV.354). In fact, Spinoza
died seven months after writing this letter, and we have no record of any fur-
ther discussion of this issue from him.
It therefore is left to others to discern how Spinoza’s insistence that matter
is “defined through an attribute that expresses eternal and infinite essence”
could provide the basis for an a priori demonstration of the existence of
bodies with particular shapes and motions. But Spinoza himself has already
offered material for the development of this position at the end of the first
part of the Ethics, when he identifies “eternal and infinite essence” with God’s
power, “by which he and all things are and act” (E Ip34d, G II.77). Bodies
with particular shapes and motions are themselves only modifications of
this power, which God produces in himself as an immanent efficient cause.
The motion that results in the existence of particular bodies and their states
derives not from an external transcendent source, as Descartes would have
it, but rather from an internal power that produces those bodies and their
states through self-​affection. In the words of one commentator, Spinoza is of-
fering in place of Descartes’s appeal to inert extension an “ontology of power”
(ontologie de la puissance) that takes the attribute of extension to be a funda-
mental kind of force that infuses everything in the material world.79
Yet the identification of extension with divine power does not completely
address the question in Tschirnhaus of how one can proceed a priori from
the nature of extension to the existence of particular bodies with their partic-
ular states. Indeed, it might be thought that Spinoza can provide no satisfac-
tory answer to this question. For the requisite demonstration would need to
proceed from the absolute nature of extension to finite bodily modes. But as
we have seen, Spinoza’s account of the infinite modes requires that anything
that proceeds from the absolute nature of a divine attribute must itself be
both infinite and something that “has always had to exist” (E Ip21, G II.65).
However, Spinoza claims that anything that “is finite and has a determinate
existence” must be determined to exist and act by something else with such
an existence, and that by another, “and so on, to infinity” (E Ip28, G II.69).

79 Matheron 1991; there is in addition Giancotta’s claim that Spinozistic substance is “a dynamic

principle which, starting from the constituent forms of its being (the attributes), transmits and
continues itself in an infinity of forms which together make up the universe” (1991: 113). See also
Garrett 1994, Viljanen 2011, and Winkler 2016.
 Metaphysical Themes from Descartes 215

We do not have here a causal chain that ends in the absolute nature of a di-
vine attribute, in contrast to the case of the infinite modes. So how, then, can
we have a derivation of a finite bodily mode from the absolute nature of the
attribute of extension?
Of course, this is a particular version of the general problem in Spinoza
concerning the derivation of the finite from the infinite. The sense that there
can be no solution to this problem has led some of Spinoza’s readers to con-
clude that his monism precludes the reality of the finite. Thus, we have Hegel’s
famous claim that on Spinoza’s view, “the absolute is substance and no being
is ascribed to the finite; his position is therefore monotheism and acomism.
So strictly is there only God, that there is no world at all; in this [view] the
finite has no genuine actuality” (Hegel 1984: I.432).80 Of course, in addition
to infinite substance and its attributes, Spinoza can perhaps allow for the der-
ivation of infinite modes. But how could he possibly allow for the derivation
of finite modes?
It is difficult to find a direct response to this question in Spinoza’s remarks
to Tschirnhaus. However, we can perhaps exploit the view in the Ethics that
any finite mode must be part of an infinite causal chain.81 In terms of Spinoza’s
power ontology, this infinite chain involves an infinity of modifications of a
power that is itself infinite. But why not take the infinite chain that includes
this infinity of finite modes to be itself an infinite mode of God’s power that
derives, at least mediately, from the absolute nature of a divine attribute? This
infinite mode supplies the mediating link that serves to connect the finite to
the infinite in a way that allows Spinoza to affirm “the “genuine actuality” of
the finite. Though this may not give us a demonstration that traces the infi-
nite route from infinite attribute to finite mode, it at least reveals the possi-
bility of such a demonstration.82
In order for this solution to work, we would need an infinity of infinite
modes, one for each of the infinite causal chains responsible for the infinity
of finite modes. But we have already seen that Spinoza requires an infinity
of infinite modes, and not just the two to which Gueroult restricts him.83

80 For an assessment of Hegel’s reading of Spinoza, see Schmitz 1980, Walther 1991, and

Melamed 2010.
81 This is in line with the responses on Spinoza’s behalf offered in Friedman 1986, Giancotta 1991,

and Nadler 2012.

82 We would seem to have here a response to the following comment in Curley: “Spinoza never

carries out the deduction of the finite from the infinite which his system (IP16) would seem to re-
quire to be possible. In my view a proper understanding of IP28 requires us to see that he would re-
gard such a deduction as impossible even for an infinite intellect” (1988: 151n60).
83 See the argument in §6.2.2.
216 The Metaphysics of the Material World

MIM2
AHB

IC of FM of IM of

MIM1 EB HB

IC of IM of

M-R

IC of IM of

AE

Figure 6.2 Spinoza on extension and its modes.

I propose Figure 6.2 as a preliminary sketch of the sort of view Spinoza has
in mind with respect to the material world. At the foundation, of course, is
the attribute of Extension (AE), the divine power that provides the ultimate
basis for all bodily modifications.84 What immediately follows from this, and
thus is an infinite modification (IM) of AE, of which AE is also the imma-
nent cause (IC), is the immediate infinite mode of motion-​and-​rest (M-​R).
From M-​R a mediate infinite mode must immediately follow (MIM1), which
is an IM of M-​R, and of which M-​R is the IC. MIM1 is itself composed of all
finite bodies, including the human body (HB) and the external bodies (such
as EB) that are the transeunt causes of the affections (such as AHB) that are
finite modes (FMs) of HB (but which, as we know, do not derive solely from
HB as their IC). These affections themselves compose a further mediate in-
finite mode (MIM2), which is an IM of MIM1 and of which MIM1 is the IC.

84 The fact that AE is depicted in Figure 6.2 as a line rather than a double arrow reflects my view

that Spinozistic attributes possess not a durational existence, even an unlimited one, but rather an
atemporal eternity. Again, the attributes differ in this respect from the infinite modes, which “have
always had to exist” (E Ip21, G II.65).
 Metaphysical Themes from Descartes 217

A further mediate infinite mode must follow from MIM2, which is an IM of

MIM2 and of which MIM2 is the IC, “and so on, to infinity” (as indicated by
the dotted arrows at the top of Figure 6.2).
As I see it, Spinoza holds that an infinite hierarchy of infinite modes
derives from the attribute of Extension, with one infinite mode for each level.
The restriction to a single mode per level is required by his stipulation that
something is finite insofar as it is limited by something else “of the same na-
ture” (E Idef2, G II.45). If there were more than one infinite mode on a level,
the power of each mode on that level would be limited by the power of the
others. Each of the infinite modes must therefore have exclusive reign, as it
were, over its own level.85 Moreover, from these modes can follow imme-
diately only a single infinite mode at the next level. Finite modes, taken by
themselves, cannot be said to follow from, or to modify, any infinite mode.86
I will attempt to fill out this complex picture further in the next chapter,
particularly with respect to the initial mediate infinite mode and its relation
to motion-​and-​rest. Of course, it will be impossible for me to provide a com-
plete depiction of the infinite hierarchy of infinite modes. But to adapt the
Chinese proverb, an infinite journey begins with a single step. In our case,
that initial step takes us from the attribute of Extension to motion-​and-​rest,
the immediate infinite mode of that attribute. Since Spinoza does not pro-
vide an explicit account of this immediate infinite mode, my initial remarks
concerning it will need to be somewhat speculative. However, I think that
Spinoza does offer enough hints to warrant the conclusion that he had a view
of the nature of this mode that borrows from his understanding of the meta-
physics of Descartes’s physics.

6.3.2. Motion-​and-​Rest as Quantity of Force

Spinoza’s account in the Ethics of the immediate infinite mode of extension is

anticipated in his Korte Verhandeling, dating from the early 1660s. The latter
text offers “Motion in matter” as an example of “universal Natura naturata,”87
85 I think this point precludes the view in Garrett 2009 that Spinoza takes the formal essences of

bodies to be infinite modes. Since these bodies are “of the same nature,” it seems that they would limit
each other, even with respect to their formal essences. At best, only the infinite collection of these
essences could be an infinite mode.
86 As I have indicated, and as I will argue further in §7.3, finite modes are to be conceived as parts of

infinite modes rather than as modes of them.

87 Spinoza is drawing here on the distinction between “Naturing nature” (Natura naturans), which

exists through itself, and “Natured nature” (Natura naturata), which exists through another (KV I.8,
218 The Metaphysics of the Material World

something that “has been from all eternity, and will remain to all eternity, im-
mutable, that is infinite in its kind, that it can neither exist nor be understood
through itself, but only through Extension.” Although Spinoza holds that an
account of the details concerning this feature of nature “belongs more prop-
erly to a treatise on Natural science than here,” he allows himself to conclude
that Motion “is a Son, product or effect, created immediately by God” (KV
I.9, G I.48).
Of course, the notion here of “creation” will not be carried over to the
Ethics. However, it might be thought that there is a further difference given
that in the earlier work Spinoza offers only “Motion,” and not “motion and
rest,” as something that follows immediately from God. Yet elsewhere in the
Korte Verhandeling Spinoza claims in a note that “there is no motion by itself,
but only motion and rest together; and this is and must be in the whole; for
there is no part in extension” (KV I.2, G I.25g). This claim is in response to
the objection that “Nature” as extension must have parts since there can be
motion only in a particular part of matter. Though the response here is not
entirely straightforward, it seems that Spinoza wants to distinguish motion
and rest taken as a whole from particular instances of these states. Though
the latter exist in particular parts, the former can exist only in an indivisible
extension.88
These initial remarks suggest that motion and rest, taken together, con-
stitute a certain total quantity of these states. The notion that motion and
rest can be quantified would have been familiar to Spinoza from Descartes’s
physics. Relevant here is the claim in the Principles that God conserves
“the quantity of motion and rest [motus et quietis . . . quantum] in [the uni-
verse] that he placed there [when he created it]” (PP II.36, AT VIIIA.61).89
Spinoza’s exchange with Tschirnhaus makes clear his opposition to the view
in Descartes that the cause of the quantities of motion and rest is external to
the material universe. Nonetheless, from early on he seems to have thought
of motion and rest in terms of quantities, and he seems to have held that the
total quantity of motion and rest is something that directly modifies only the
whole of extension.

G I.47). This distinction is picked up in the Ethics, at Ip29s, G II.71. I take the distinction in the ear-
lier text between “universal” and “particular” Natura naturata to be reflected in the distinction in the
Ethics between infinite and finite modes, respectively.
88 For more on Spinoza’s argument for the indivisibility of extension, see §7.1.1.
89 I have considered this passage previously in relation to Descartes’s view of the incorruptibility of

“body taken in general”; see the beginning of §5.2.1.

 Metaphysical Themes from Descartes 219

But what sort of total quantity is concerned here? Spinoza does not tell
us, either in the Korte Verhandeling or in the Ethics. However, he would have
been aware of a particular conception of this quantity in Descartes. In his late
correspondence with Henry More, Descartes provides an important clari-
fication of the conservation principle he endorsed in the Principles. He tells
More that when he referred to the conservation of the quantity of motion, “I
meant this about the force [vi] that impels its parts, which is applied at dif-
ferent times to different parts of matter” (August 1649, AT V.405). Moreover,
elsewhere in this correspondence, as well as in his Principles, Descartes
speaks of a quantity of force involved in rest as well as motion.90 There are
grounds in Descartes, then, for taking the conservation of motion and rest
to consist in the conservation of the total quantity of impelling and resisting
forces that are responsible for motion and rest.91
There is of course considerable scholarly dispute concerning Descartes’s
own understanding of these forces, with some taking him to posit them in
bodies, others in God, and still others taking him to hold that the forces are
nowhere since they are entirely fictional.92 But we are concerned here not
with Descartes’s self-​understanding, but rather with Spinoza’s understanding
of Descartes. In his summary of the portion of Descartes’s Principles that
concerns physics, Spinoza presents as an axiom that “a variation in any thing
proceeds from a stronger force [vi fortiori]” (DPP Iax20, G I.184). These
forces are identified, in the case of moving bodies, with “a quantity of mo-
tion, which must be greater, in bodies of equal size, as the speed of motion
is greater,” and in the case of resting bodies, with a certain “quantity of rest”
(DPP IIp22d, G I.209).93 And here Spinoza is only following Descartes, who
refers in his Principles to the “forces of acting” (vi ad agendum) and “forces
of resisting” (vi ad resistendum) that determine the redistribution of motion
due to bodily collision (e.g., PP II.43, AT VIIIA.66).

90 For discussion of Descartes’s account of the force of rest in this correspondence, see Schmaltz

2015b: 25–​31.
91 Recall that Spinoza had access to this view in the More correspondence; see note 76.
92 For an example of the first view, see Schmaltz 2008, ch. 3; for an example of the second, Hatfield

1979; and for an example of the third, Garber 1992: 293–​99.

93 The indication in Descartes is that quantity of motion is to be measured by volume x speed; see

PP II.36, AT VIIIA.61. Using this sort of measure, Spinoza concludes in his summary of the Principles
that if a body A moves at twice the speed of body B but is half the size of B, there is “just as much
motion” in B as in A, and thus both have “an equal force” (DPP IIp22c2, G I.209–​10). Spinoza also
indicates that the resisting force in a body at rest varies with the speed of the body it is resisting (DPP
IIp22c1, G I.209).
220 The Metaphysics of the Material World

It might well be objected that Spinoza’s remarks cannot be assumed to re-

flect his own views, since he is merely summarizing Descartes. However, we
have Spinoza’s own testimony to the fact that he accepts most of Descartes’s
account of the interactions of bodies in collision. This testimony was
prompted by the recollection of his correspondent, Henry Oldenburg, that
Spinoza had said that he follows Huygens in thinking that “Descartes’s Rules
of motion are nearly all false” (Ep XXXI, October 12, 1665, G IV.167). In re-
sponse, Spinoza emphasizes that he said only that it was Huygens who took
Descartes’s collision rules to be nearly all false, and that in fact he himself
holds only that Descartes’s sixth collision rule is false, as well as Huygens
own correction of this rule (Ep XXXII, November 20, 1665, G IV.174).94 It
is unclear what Spinoza himself took the correct version of the sixth rule to
be, and he perhaps had no version to offer.95 Indeed, his lack of an account
may be one of the things he had in mind when he told Tschirnhaus that he
had “not had the opportunity to arrange in due order” to be in a position to
discuss his view of the derivation of particular bodies and their states from
Extension. Nevertheless, Spinoza’s suggestion to Oldenburg that he accepted
most of Descartes’s collision rules, coupled with his own description of those
rules in terms of quantified moving and resting forces, indicates that he him-
self conceived of motion and rest in terms of such forces.
There is a complication regarding Spinoza’s relation to Descartes that
derives from the Cogitata metaphysica, an appendix to the summary of the
Principles that offers a scholasticized version of a broadly Cartesian view.
In this appendix, Spinoza claims that since “God creates a thing, anew, as
it were,” it follows that “the thing, of itself, never has any power to do any-
thing or to determine itself to any action” (CM II.9, G I.273). He is drawing
here, of course, on Descartes’s claim in Meditation III that it follows from the
fact that he has a divisible temporal duration that he depends on some cause
that “as it were creates” him anew at each moment (AT VII.48–​49). Spinoza
at least suggests that it follows from such a claim that bodies can have no
genuine causal efficacy. Even so, it is important to note that such an occa-
sionalism would derive from the Cartesian assumption that God is a tran-
scendent being. Since Spinoza rejects this assumption and holds that God is

94 According to Descartes’s sixth rule, the collision of a body at rest with a moving body equal

in size to it results in the moving body rebounding with three quarters of its moving force and the
resting body moving forward with the other quarter of this moving force; see PP II.51, AT VIIIA.69.
95 As far as we know, Oldenburg’s request for further information about Spinoza’s views on this

matter (Ep XXXIII, December 8, 1665, G IV.176–​77) went unanswered. For a discussion of Spinoza’s
exchange with Oldenburg on the collision rules, see Gabbey 1996: 165–​66.
 Metaphysical Themes from Descartes 221

an immanent cause, he is in a position to attribute the forces that Descartes

invokes in his physics to the bodies themselves.96
Indeed, such an attribution accords with the result in the Ethics that finite
bodily modes “express in a certain and determinate way” God’s power as an
extended thing. Moreover, there is the suggestion that the different forces in
moving and resting bodies are in fact aspects of a single force. Thus, Spinoza
notes, in summarizing Descartes, that as

is known through itself, the force that is needed to impart certain degrees of
motion to a body at rest is also required to take away those certain degrees
of motion from the body so that it is wholly at rest. (DPP IIdef8, G I.182)97

It seems that the single force responsible for all of the states of motion and
rest in the material world can be identified with the single immediate in-
finite mode of Extension. In turn, we can take this force to be distributed
among the infinite number of finite bodily modes that express it. Perhaps
the best candidates for such finite modes would be “the simplest bodies”
(corpora simplicissima) mentioned in a short digression on physics in the
Ethics.98 In this section, these bodies are said to be “distinguished from one
another only by motion and rest, speed and slowness” (E Ip13ax, G II.99).
Given the Cartesian background, we have reason to follow Don Garrett in
concluding that “what Spinoza calls ‘local’ motion and rest of the simplest
bodies will be both the consequence of, and a measure of, the force or quan-
tity of motion (and correlative quantity of rest) that belongs to them and,
indeed, constitutes them” (1994: 81). In this way the simplest bodies serve as
particular “expressions” of the divine power as manifested in the immediate
infinite mode of (that is, total force or quantity of) motion-​and-​rest.99

96 Even so, there is the suggestion in the literature that Spinoza did not conceive of rest in terms

of force. Thus, Matheron claims that Spinoza identified the quantity of rest in a body simply with
its size (Matheron 1969: 40n9), whereas Gueroult claims that he was committed to the view that
there is no sort of force involved in rest (1974: 178–​79). More in line with my view here is Gabbey’s
account of Spinozistic motion-​and-​rest, which identifies it with a quantity of motive and resisting
forces (Gabbey 2008: 52–​59).
97 I owe this point to the discussion in Garrett 1994: 79–​80.
98 This is from the portion of second part of the Ethics known as the “Physical Digression.” I have

more to say about this portion in §7.2.2.

99 But cf. Peterman’s conclusion that “there is no philosophical or historical reason to read ‘motion

and rest’ as anything like ‘energy’ or ‘power’ ” (2017: 117–​18). I would suggest in response that the
fact that Spinoza expressly states that modes are certain and determinate expressions of God’s power
provides some reason to understand the notion in this way.
222 The Metaphysics of the Material World

To be sure, Spinoza says nothing about how the simplest bodies are to be
individuated. Here we might look to Descartes for some assistance. In his
Principles, Descartes applies his first “law of nature,” concerning persistence
of something unaffected by external causes in its particular state, only to
bodies considered as “simple and undivided” (simplex et indivisa) (PP II.37,
AT VIIIA.62). Given Descartes’s commitment to the essential divisibility
of extended substance, he cannot be taking the simple bodies to be indivis-
ible. Rather, he has in mind bodies that have not been actually divided by
internal motion. Though Descartes is not entirely clear on how such bodies
are to be individuated, we can perhaps understand them on the model of the
“determined parts of matter” that he mentions in his correspondence with
Mesland.100 Such parts are to be individuated in terms of a motion in which
all the sub-​portions of those parts share. But then simple bodies would be
ones in which the sub-​portions lack distinguishing motions of their own.
Perhaps Spinoza’s simplest bodies are bodies that share in a particular mo-
tion and that lack any internal motion.
The suggestion in Descartes is that the same simple and undivided bodies
can persist through changes in their states of motion and rest. Thus, he
introduces his collision rules as a means of determining “how individual
bodies increase or diminish their motions or change direction as a result of
collision with other bodies” (PP II.45, AT VIIIA.67). But there is the same
suggestion in the Ethics, in which Spinoza introduces as an axiom the claim
that the same simplest body can “move now more slowly, now more quickly,
and absolutely, that now they move, now they are at rest” (E Ip13lem2, G
II.98). As long as the parts into which this body is divisible continue to share
in the same motion or rest and do not take on their own motions, the body
itself can be said to persist as the same simplest body.101
Of course, the fact that Descartes’s simple and undivided bodies are consti-
tuted by substantial parts of matter serves to distinguish them from Spinoza’s
simplest bodies. For Spinoza is clear in the Ethics that his monism requires
that such bodies be “distinguished from one another by reason of motion and
rest, speed and slowness, and not be reason of substance” (E IIp13s, lem1, G

100 See the discussion in §5.1.2, after note 19.

101 See also Garrett’s suggestion that “the particular quantities of motion and rest constituting
a simplest body need not remain the same throughout its spatiotemporal path, even if the size or
volume of the body itself does not change; it will suffice that the part be continuous and that the
distribution of quantity of motion—​and corresponding quantity of rest—​remain homogeneous
throughout the body” (1994: 81). For a discussion that is more skeptical of the claim that Spinoza has
the means to individuate the simplest bodies, see Peterman 2017: 108–​13.
 Metaphysical Themes from Descartes 223

II.97).102 However, he retains the notion that the simplest bodies are parts of
a greater whole, in this case, of the infinite mode of motion-​and-​rest. This is
indicated by Spinoza’s claim—​in the same 1663 letter to Oldenburg in which
he corrects his correspondent’s recollection of his opinion of Descartes’s col-
lision rules—​that “every body, in so far as it exists modified in a definite way,
must be considered as a part of the whole universe” (Ep XXXII, G IV.170).103
Though simplest bodies cannot be composed of substantial parts, they them-
selves remain parts of some kind.104
In light of our previous discussion, such a mereological conception of
motion-​and-​rest raises some questions. We have encountered two different
models of the way in which the parts of a continuous quantity are related to
the whole they compose. There is the bottom-​up mereology that applies to the
continuous quantity that constitutes the nature of Descartes’s extended sub-
stance. This quantity is to be conceived as the mereological sum of the sub-
stantial parts that compose it, and thus as something that depends essentially
on those parts.105 In contrast, we have seen that Suárez allows for a kind of
top-​down mereology with respect to continuous quantity. The integral parts
of this quantity are merely “incomplete beings” that are ordained to compose
a whole, and so must be conceived in terms of that whole.106 So which sort of
mereological model are we to apply to Spinoza’s motion-​and-​rest?
I take the Suárezian top-​down model to be most appropriate for the con-
ception of this infinite mode. There is the initial point that insofar as motion-​
and-​rest is a mode rather than a substance, it is more similar to Suárez’s
continuous quantity (an accidental res) than it is to Descartes’s continuous
quantity (a substantial res). But more significant is the suggestion in Suárez
that continuous quantity has a nature that does not derive merely from the
natures of its integral parts.107 So also in Spinoza, it seems, there is some es-
sence deriving immediately from the absolute nature of Extension in terms
of which the essences of its parts must be conceived.108

102 The demonstration of this conclusion appeals explicitly to the argument for monism in the first

part of the Ethics.

103 I return to this important passage in §7.2.1.
104 As I indicate in the next chapter, such bodies are to be conceived as modal parts.
105 See the discussion toward the beginning of §4.2.2, and in §5.2.2, after note 55.
106 See §3.2.2, after note 63.
107 In particular, there is Suárez’s claim that continuous and homogeneous wholes have a per se

unity that is distinct from the per accidens unity of collections of heterogeneous parts; see, again,
§3.2.2, after note 63.
108 I return to this point in §7.2.3.
224 The Metaphysics of the Material World

However, we need to confront the objection that Spinoza’s monism

precludes the very idea that there are parts that compose material nature.
Indeed, one reason Bayle offers for rejecting Spinoza’s identification of God
with extended substance is that such a substance must consist of distinct sub-
stantial parts. We have seen that Spinoza does have something to offer here
in response. In particular, we have considered his argument that Cartesians
who deny a vacuum must also deny that extension consists in parts that are
really distinct in the sense that they can exist without the others.109 Yet having
insisted that extended substance is devoid of distinct parts, Spinoza owes us
an explanation of how he can apply the mereological notions of whole and
part to the material world. Admittedly, some of his remarks may seem to in-
dicate that such notions are merely heuristic and do not indicate the true na-
ture of this world. There is, for instance, his claim in the Korte Verhandeling
that “part and whole are not true or actual beings, but only beings of reason
[wesens van reeden]; consequently in Nature there are neither whole nor
parts” (KV I.2, G I.24).110 Such a claim could be taken to reflect the view in
Spinoza that, strictly speaking, material nature lacks any sort of parts, a view
that Bayle, for one, found to be literally incredible. But as we will discover
in the next chapter, this is not in fact Spinoza’s considered position. As he
understands it, at least, his argument for the indivisibility of extended sub-
stance is perfectly compatible with his admission of distinct finite “bodily
individuals” that serve as parts that compose an infinite bodily whole. A suc-
cessful defense of this understanding would go a far way toward addressing
Bayle’s critique of Spinoza’s material monism.

109See the discussion of this argument in §5.2.2.

110However, it is significant that Spinoza indicates in a note that “Nature” here is to be restricted to
“substantial extension.” See the further discussion of this point in §7.2.1, after note 22.
 7
Material Monism and Bodily Parts

In the first chapter, I highlighted two objections in Bayle to the Spinozistic

identification of God with extended substance: the first, that extension is
composed of parts, and so cannot be an attribute of a simple divine being;
and the second, that extension is the subject of variable modifications, and
so cannot be the attribute of an immutable divine being. Spinoza himself
concedes that God, as absolutely infinite substance, can be neither divisible
nor mutable. However, he also insists that the modifications of extended
substance are divisible and mutable. In an important passage from the scho-
lium to proposition 15 from the first part of the Ethics, Spinoza expresses this
point by appealing to the particular case of water. He notes that in this case,

we conceive that water, insofar as [quatenus] it is water, is divided and its

parts separated from one another; but not insofar as [quatenus] it is cor-
poreal substance, for that is neither separated nor divided. Again water, in-
sofar as [quatenus] it is water, is generated and corrupted; but insofar as
[quatenus] it is substance, it is neither generated nor corrupted. (G II.60)

It is not water simpliciter that is divisible and mutable, but only water
quatenus a mode of extended substance. In contrast, water quatenus corpo-
real substance itself is neither divisible nor mutable. From Spinoza’s perspec-
tive, Bayle is simply confusing water quatenus mode with water quatenus
extended substance.1
This point serves to distinguish Spinoza’s material monism from another
kind of monism that has received considerable attention recently. Jonathan
Schaffer has argued that though “monism is now usually interpreted as the
view that exactly one thing exists” that has no parts, “the core tenet of his-
torical monism is not that the whole has no parts, but rather that the whole

1 Spinoza uses quatenus at least 444 times in the Ethics; see Laerke 2012. For an analysis of the logic

underlying Spinoza’s use of this term, see Douglas 2018. See also the further discussion of the latter
article in the epilogue.

The Metaphysics of the Material World. Tad M. Schmaltz, Oxford University Press (2020).
© Oxford University Press.
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190070229.001.0001
226 The Metaphysics of the Material World

is prior to its parts” (Schaffer 2010: 33).2 Though Schaffer takes Spinoza to
be a proponent of historical monism, it is clear that Spinoza himself is com-
mitted to rejecting the view that the one extended substance is divisible into
parts. In particular, he could not say that this substance is a whole composed
of parts, even with the proviso that this whole is somehow prior to its parts.
Nevertheless, we will see that as Schaffer himself emphasizes, Spinoza
at times seems to suggest a view in line with historical monism when he
speaks of bodies as parts of nature as an infinite whole. At this point Bayle’s
objections would appear to be applicable: such a whole is both divisible into
parts and subject to change. Even though Schaffer is concerned to defend
historical monism, these objections would not be troubling to him since
he does not identify nature as a whole with an indivisible and immutable
God. However, Spinoza refers explicitly to Deus sive Natura, and so bears the
burden of explaining how bodies that are modes of God as an indivisible and
immutable extended substance can nonetheless also be parts of a divisible
and mutable extended infinite whole.
An initial task is to clarify Spinoza’s own notion of part. I begin in §7.1
with his distinction—​clearly anticipated in neither Suárez nor Descartes—​
between modal and substantial parts. Spinoza’s own argument for the indi-
visibility of extended substance requires that this substance be composed of
neither sort of part. Nevertheless, I take him to be committed to the view—​
again, novel in the context of the history of the notion of mode—​that the
modifications of this substance are composed of modal parts. In defending
the reality of modal parts, I confront the suggestion in Spinoza that quantity
can be conceived as divisible into spatial parts only when it is inadequately
conceived by the imagination. Such a suggestion has been taken to reveal
that Spinoza cannot allow for any genuinely divisible spatial extension. In
response, I argue that though Spinoza cannot allow that substantial exten-
sion is composed of spatial parts, he himself indicates that the modes of this
extension have a mereological structure that requires spatial differentiability.
But what kind of structure, exactly? This is the question to which I turn
in §7.2. I emphasize here an important passage from a letter to Oldenburg
in which Spinoza explicitly considers the sense in which a finite body can be
conceived to be a part of a whole. Though Shaffer highlights the mereological
account in this passage, there is some question whether it is fully consistent

2 Section 7.2.1 highlights one recent critical discussion of this article, namely, Guigon 2012. Cf. the

critique from a more contemporary perspective in Hogan and Potrc 2012, and the response to this
critique in Schaffer 2012.
 Material Monism and Bodily Parts 227

with Spinoza’s material monism. Indeed, one commentator has recently

insisted that Spinoza’s talk of parts of an infinite whole must be a mere façon
de parler that does not reflect mereological divisions in reality. In response
I offer an alternative interpretation according to which Spinoza allows for the
reality of the finite modal parts that compose an infinite modal whole. In de-
veloping his view of the nature of this modal whole, I draw on the claim in the
Ethics that there is an “Infinite Individual” that comprises all finite bodies.
Spinoza indicates that this individual is to be identified not with extended
substance itself, but rather with an “infinite mode” of that substance.
In his letter to Oldenburg, Spinoza claims at one point that bodily parts
have a more intimate relation to substance than they have to the infinite
whole they compose. In §7.3, I attempt to explain this claim in terms of the
fact that whereas certain features of modal parts can be adequately conceived
apart from the modal wholes they compose, no features of modes can be ad-
equately conceived apart from the substance they modify. One lesson here is
that Spinoza’s monistic account of the material world includes mereological
features that Schaffer’s preferred version of monism fails to capture. Another
is that Spinozistic material monism differs significantly from the sort of
monism that was the target of Bayle’s critique of Spinoza.

7.1. Modal Parts and Divisible Quantity

7.1.1. Modal Parts and Substantial Indivisibility

In his 1663 Cogitata metaphysica, Spinoza appeals to Descartes’s three kinds

of metaphysical distinction, namely, real, modal, and rational,3 noting that

from these three [kinds of distinction] all composition arises. The first
sort of composition is that which comes from two or more substances that
have the same attribute (e.g., all composition that arises from two or more
bodies) or that have different attributes (e.g., man). The second comes from
the union of different modes. The third, finally, does not occur, but is only
conceived by reason as if it occurred, so that the thing may be more easily
understood. (CM I.5, G I.258)

3 For discussion of the theory of distinctions in Descartes, see §4.1.

228 The Metaphysics of the Material World

Although Spinoza does not make explicit use in this passage of the
mereological notions of part and whole, I believe that the passage itself
suggests a distinction among three different kinds of parts. The first derives
from the combination of different substances either of the same attribute (as
in the case of bodies) or of different attributes (as in the case of the union of
the human mind with a body) to form a single composite substantial whole.
Let us call the substances that compose such a whole the substantial parts of
that whole. Then there is the composite that derives from the union of dif-
ferent modes that constitutes a composite modal whole. Let us call the modes
that compose this sort of whole the modal parts of that whole. Finally, in the
case of the distinction of reason, we have a distinguishing of parts in thought
that are not distinct in reality. Let us call these parts the merely conceptual
parts of something that is not in fact divisible into such parts.4
One cannot simply assume that the views that Spinoza offers in the
Cogitata metaphysica are his own. After all, we have encountered the warning
in Meyer’s preface to Spinoza’s summary of the Principles, which includes this
as an appendix, that though the author allows that some of the doctrines in
the text are true, nonetheless “there are many that he rejects as false, and con-
cerning which he holds a quite different opinion” (G I.131). This warning
applies to the appendix as well as to the target text. Indeed, we will discover
that the suggestion in the preceding passage that a substance can be com-
posed of different substantial parts is one that Spinoza explicitly rejects.
Nonetheless, I hope to show that the distinction between substantial and
modal parts that he offers in this passage can help us to understand his ap-
parently conflicting remarks in the Ethics concerning the divisibility of the
material world.
Insofar as Spinoza is committed to the reality of modal parts, he is com-
mitted as well to what, with respect to the historical narrative in Bayle that
I have been following, is a new metaphysical category. At least, Suárez and
Descartes do not have the conceptual resources to conceive of modal parts
that compose a modal whole. Let us start with Suárez, for whom integral
parts are res, not modes. As he understands the issue, such parts are either
accidental res, as in the case of the impenetrable parts of the real accident
of quantity, or substantial res, as in the case of the penetrable parts of prime
matter and material substance in which the quantitative parts immediately

4 Cf. the discussion of the three-​ fold distinction among kinds of composition in Guigon
2012: 190–​93. As indicated in §7.2.1, Guigon’s use of this distinction in interpreting Spinoza differs
from my own.
 Material Monism and Bodily Parts 229

and mediately inhere, respectively.5 As his discussion of prime matter shows,

Suárez allows that parts inhere in other parts; thus, he differs from both
Descartes and Spinoza in refusing to restrict inherence to modes. Indeed, we
have seen that he denies that modes inhere at all. For Suárez, inherence is it-
self a mode that relates distinct res, and not something a mode does.6
At least with respect to quantity, there is no room for the notion of a modal
part in Descartes’s system. This is clear from his discussion of the ontological
status of surfaces. In defending his view that surfaces are modes of bodies
rather than parts of them, Descartes emphasizes that bodily parts are three-​
dimensional, whereas modes have only two dimensions.7 In his view, bodily
parts do not inhere, but merely compose a quantitative whole. It is the modes
of such parts, such as the common boundary that continuous parts share,
that inhere. The claim that there are quantitative parts that are modal, and so
inhere, can only involve a category mistake for Descartes.8
This is not to claim that Spinoza’s conceptions of modes and parts are
entirely novel. As we have seen, Spinoza inherited from Descartes a non-​
Suárezian account of modes in terms of inherence. Moreover, later in this
chapter I will note briefly a relation between the views of parts in Suárez and
Spinoza that to my knowledge has entirely escaped notice. Nonetheless, in
the context of the previous development of the metaphysics of the material
world that I have highlighted, the indication in the Cogitata metaphysica that
modes can be composed of parts is a genuinely novel feature of Spinoza’s
system.
Even if it is conceded that the notion of a modal part is new, though, there
still might be some question whether Spinoza himself can allow for the ex-
istence of any such thing. An initial reason for doubt derives from Spinoza’s
official position that substance in general, and corporeal or extended sub-
stance in particular, cannot be divided into parts. This is found in a corol-
lary to Ethics Ip13, in which it is said to follow from the proposition that “a
substance that is absolutely infinite is indivisible” that “no substance, and
consequently no corporeal substance, insofar as it is substance [quatenus

5 See the discussion in §3.2.2.

6 For this point, see the discussion in §2.3.3.
7 For a discussion of this distinction in Descartes, see §4.3.1.
8 Elsewhere I have attributed to Descartes the view that the parts into which temporal duration is

divisible are, in contrast to spatial parts, modal rather than substantial; see Schmaltz 2008: 78–​81.
However, such modal parts differ from the modal parts that Spinoza has in mind insofar as they
constitute not a modal whole but rather an attribute that, according to Descartes, is distinct only in
reason from the enduring substance. On this point, see PP I.62, AT VIIIA.30.
230 The Metaphysics of the Material World

substantia est], is divisible” (G II.55).9 If material substance is completely in-

divisible, how could there be any parts in the material world?
In order to discern whether the indivisibility of material substance rules
out the possibility of material modal parts, let us consider the particular ar-
gument for substantial indivisibility that Spinoza offers. There are in fact
two related arguments, the first of which concerns the proposition, “No at-
tribute of substance can be truly conceived from which it follows that the
substance can be divided” (E Ip12, G II.55), and the second, the proposition,
“The substance that is absolutely infinite is indivisible” (E Ip13, G II.55). The
first demonstration proceeds by way of dilemma: the parts of the attribute
that allow us to conceive of the substance as divisible either “retain the nature
of substance” or not. If they do retain this nature, then the parts must them-
selves be substances. However, these must have different attributes, given the
earlier result in the Ethics that different substances cannot share an attribute
(E Ip5, G II.48). So also, then, in order to be itself a substance, the whole
composed of parts with different attributes would have to have its own at-
tribute, distinct from those of its parts. But since attributes in general can be
conceived through themselves alone (E Ip10, G II.51), it would have to be the
case that the attribute of the whole could be conceived entirely apart from the
attributes of its substantial parts. And since any substance is a causa sui, and
so exists through itself alone (E Ip7, G II.49),10 the substantial whole could
exist only through itself, and not through its parts. Thus, we have the absurd
result that the whole “could both be and be conceived without its parts” (E
Ip12d, G II.55).
This is the first horn of the dilemma. The second involves the claim that
the parts into which a substantial whole can be divided do not retain the na-
ture of substance. Here the argument is terse and requires imaginative recon-
struction. Spinoza tells us that “since the whole substance would be divided
into equal parts, it would lose the nature of substance, and would cease to be,”
which is ruled out by the earlier proposition that the essence of substance
“necessarily involves existence” (E Ip12d, G II.55; citing E Ip7, G II.49). An

9 According to Spinoza, an “absolutely infinite” substance differs from a substance that is merely

“infinite in its own kind.” Whereas the essence of the former is limited to a single attribute, “whatever
expresses essence and involves no negation” pertains to the essence of the former (E Ipdef6, exp, G
II.45–​46). Since what involves negation, or is finite in its own kind, must be “limited by another of the
same nature” (E Ipdef2, G II.45), and since attribute of extension cannot be limited by another of the
same nature, this attribute pertains to the essence of absolutely infinite substance.
10 For more on Spinoza’s notion of causa sui, which serves to distinguish his views from those of

Suárez and Descartes, see §6.1.1, after note 11.

 Material Monism and Bodily Parts 231

initial puzzle concerns the assumption that division would be into equal
parts. Why would division produce equal parts, and what sort of equality is
in play here? One suggestion is that the parts are equal in the sense that they
equally fail to retain the nature of substance. But Spinoza indicates that divi-
sion into such parts would destroy the whole, since “to destroy a thing is to
resolve it into such parts that none of them express the nature of the whole”
(Ep XXXVI, G IV.184). Division would leave us only with parts that are not
themselves substantial, and so with nothing substantial that remains.
Though Spinoza does not explicitly invoke it here, we can understand the
argument in terms of the mereology of the Cogitata metaphysica. Given the
implication of this account that real parts are either substantial or modal,
parts that do not share in the nature of substance could be only modal parts.
In this way, such parts could be said to be equally modal. The only alternative
to the parts sharing in the nature of substance is their being modal parts. In
this way, none of the parts share in this nature. But then reduction to parts by
means of division would leave us only with modal parts, which could con-
stitute only a modal and not a substantial whole. The nature of substance is
thereby lost, an impossibility, given its necessary existence.
The second proposition concerns the indivisibility of absolutely infinite
substance itself, as opposed to the attributes of that substance. The demon-
stration employs the same dilemma as before. However, the response to the
first horn cannot involve ascribing distinct attributes to the parts, since by
definition absolutely infinite substance consists of an infinity of attributes,
and thereby, all of them. So we are left with the result that the parts are
substances that share all of the attributes, which most assuredly conflicts with
the requirement that distinct substances share none. But if none of the parts
have the nature of absolutely infinite substance, then when this substance is
reduced to its parts through division, we have the absurd result that only the
parts and not absolutely infinite substance exist (E Ip13d, G II.55).
It is important to note, however, that in a corollary to this second demon-
stration Spinoza indicates that the upshot here is only that no substance, and
thus no corporeal substance, is divisible, insofar as it is substance (E Ip13c,
G II.55). Likewise, in the passage from Ethics Ip15s that I cited at the outset
of this chapter, there is merely the claim that water “insofar as it is corporeal
substance” cannot be divided (G II.60). But this latter passage, in particular,
allows that water can be divided into separated parts “insofar as it is water”
(G II.60). We are to read this claim in terms of the earlier view in the Korte
Verhandeling that “division never occurs in the substance, but always and
232 The Metaphysics of the Material World

only in the modes of the substance. So if I want to divide water, I divide only
the mode of the substance, not the substance itself ” (KV I.2, G I.26). Thus, to
say that water is divisible as water is to say that it is divisible as a mode of cor-
poreal substance. In terms of the Cogitata metaphysica, the parts into which
water is divisible could not be substantial since they constitute water only as
mode, and not as substance. But given that these parts are real rather than
merely conceptual, the only option is for them to be modal parts that com-
pose water as a modal whole.
However, there is another portion of the passage from Ethics Ip15s that
I have not cited, but that may be thought to bring into question the reality
even of modal parts. This is the claim in the scholium that quantity can be
said to be divisible into parts only “as it is in the imagination” and not “as it
is in the intellect” (G II.59). This claim can be—​and has been—​understood
to indicate that spatially divisible quantity is not real, and thus that corporeal
substance cannot possess any sort of spatially distinguishable parts. In order
to defend the conclusion that the divisibility of the modes of corporeal sub-
stance into modal parts is consistent with the indivisibility of that substance,
I need to confront this understanding of Spinoza’s attitude toward divisible
spatial quantity.

7.2.2. Spatial Quantity and Divisibility

Recently Alison Peterman has offered the provocative thesis that “Spinoza
does not think that modes [of corporeal substance] are extended in space,” as
shown by the fact that he denies that “modes are adequately conceived when
they are conceived abstractly, superficially, and through the imagination”
(2015: 16a). The language here is drawn from Spinoza’s remarks in a letter
that he sent to his friend Meyer in 1663, now widely known as the “Letter on
the Infinite.” In this letter, Spinoza distinguishes two ways of conceiving of
quantity:

either abstractly, or superficially, as we have it in the imagination with the

aid of the senses; or as substance, which is done by the intellect alone. So if
we attend to quantity as it is in the imagination, which is what we do most
often and most easily, we find it to be divisible, finite, composed of parts,
and one of many. But if we attend to it as it is in the intellect, and perceive
the thing as it is in itself, which is very difficult, then we find it to be infinite,
 Material Monism and Bodily Parts 233

indivisible and unique, as I have already demonstrated sufficiently to you

before now. (Ep 12, G IV.56)

This passage obviously provides the basis for the previously cited claim con-
cerning quantity in the scholium to Ethics Ip15. But from these remarks
to Meyer, there seems to be an easy route to Peterman’s conclusion that
Spinoza’s corporeal substance cannot be adequately conceived to have a di-
visible spatial extension. After all, Spinoza himself indicates in the Ethics that
imagination (as well as sensation) can yield only a kind of cognition that is
“inadequate and confused” and so a “cause of falsity” (E IIp41d, G II.123).
But if corporeal substance can be conceived to have a divisible quantity only
by means of imagination, then this conception must be false. Insofar as the
possession of spatial extension requires the possession of divisible quantity,
one cannot truly conceive that either this substance or its modes are spatially
extended.
In light of Peterman’s reading, there is a quick response to Bayle’s objec-
tion concerning the view offered on Spinoza’s behalf that the “intelligible
extension” of God differs from “the extension of the bodies that we see and
imagine” (DHC, “Spinoza,” rem. DD, IV.270a).11 Recall the objection that
this distinction would leave us with two distinct subjects of extension, thus
overturning the unity of Spinozistic substance. However, Peterson would
have it that Spinoza simply denies the reality of the divisible spatial extension
we “see and imagine.” There is no conflict here insofar as all that remains is
the absolutely indivisible extension of God.
Nevertheless, there is reason to think that Spinoza himself does not hold
that any sort of divisible spatial extension must be quantity as inadequately
conceived. In particular, there are indications in both the Letter on the
Infinite and in the scholium to Ethics Ip15 that when Spinoza is speaking of
the inadequate conception of quantity, he has in mind the conception of this
quantity as divisible into substantial parts. Consider first the Letter on the
Infinite. Just prior to distinguishing the two conceptions of quantity, Spinoza
notes in this letter that

they talk of utter nonsense, not to say madness, who hold that Extended
Substance is put together of parts, or [sive] bodies, really distinct from one
another. This is just the same as if someone should try, merely by adding

11 Cited in §6.2.1, after note 42.

234 The Metaphysics of the Material World

and accumulating many circles, to put together a square or circle or some-

thing completely different in its essence. (G IV.55)

It is clear that the parts into which extended substance is falsely conceived to
be divisible are substantial parts, “bodies really distinct from one another.”
It is even clearer in the scholium to Ethics Ip15 that it is only divisibility into
substantial parts that is being rejected, and not divisibility into modal parts.
For Spinoza claims in that text “that matter is everywhere the same, and that
parts are distinguished in it only insofar as we conceive matter to be affected
in different ways, so that its parts are distinguished only modally, but not re-
ally” (G II.59). Here again we have the example of water, which is indivisible
as substance but divisible into separated parts as a mode of substance.
This example seems to me clearly to render particularly problematic
Peterman’s thesis that Spinoza denies that modes are extended in space. The
divisibility of water considered as a mode consists in having parts that can
be divided and separated from each other. But surely the sort of separation
Spinoza has in mind here is spatial separation through motion. If so, then
it cannot be the case, as Peterman claims, that for Spinoza “finite bodies,
or modes of the ‘extended’ substance, are . . . not properly understood as
possessing dimensionality” (Peterman 2015: 1b–​2a).
Peterman is assuming here that Spinoza recognizes only two kinds of
quantity, namely, to use her labels, quantity1, that is, quantity conceived
by the imagination as divisible into parts, and quantity2, that is, quantity
conceived by the intellect as identical to indivisible extended substance
(Peterman 2015: 4b–​5a). My suggestion is that quantity1 is quantity con-
ceived as a substance that is divisible into substantial parts, and that we need
to add a third kind of quantity, call it quantity3, which is quantity conceived
as a modal whole that is divisible into modal parts. The distinction between
Peterman’s quantity1 and my quantity3 tracks the distinction in the Letter
on the Infinite between quantity insofar as it is “abstracted from substance,”
on the one hand, and insofar as it “flows from eternal things,” on the other
(G IV.56–​57). Given the view, noted in the previous chapter,12 that quantity
can be conceived to be an ultimate durational subject of modes, when it is
abstracted from substance it also can itself be conceived (by the imagination)
as a substance composed of distinct substantial parts. However, the quantity

12 See Figure 6.1.

 Material Monism and Bodily Parts 235

that is conceived to flow from an eternal substance is conceived to be a mod-

ification of an eternal and indivisible substantial extension.
Appealing to this very conception of substance, Peterman insists that for
Spinoza “substance cannot be divided into two or more modes, because it is
not composed of two or more modes. . . . Complex modes are modally divis-
ible, but we cannot make sense of the idea that substance is modally divisible”
(2015: 11a). As we have seen, one upshot of Spinoza’s argument for substan-
tial indivisibility is that substance cannot be divided into modal parts. But
this does not prevent the complex modes themselves from being so divisible,
as Peterman herself seems to concede in the passage just quoted (“complex
modes are modally divisible”). Thus, the indivisibility of extended substance
seems to be compatible with the divisibility of the modes of this substance.
There is another way of reading Peterman’s argument, however, that
renders it more congenial to the position I attribute to Spinoza. Though her
official position is that Spinozistic modes lack a divisible spatial extension,
Peterman at times offers the weaker thesis that this sort of extension is merely
“derivative” and dependent on an attribute that cannot be said to be extended
in this way (see, e.g., 2015: 20a). There is a contrast here with Descartes, who
takes divisible spatial extension to be a fundamental feature of the material
world. Thus, though Spinoza uses the same word, “extension,” that Descartes
used, “he understands the meaning of the term differently” (2015: 21a).
This point must be granted; indeed, I think it provides a useful corrective
to Bayle’s understanding of Spinoza’s view of extended substance. Bayle takes
the fact that Spinoza is “a great Cartesian” to indicate that he is committed
to identifying this substance with the divisible subject of modes of exten-
sion. However, our previous discussion has revealed two different reasons
to reject this characterization of Spinoza. The first is Spinoza’s own rejection,
in his correspondence with Tschirnhaus, of the identification of extended
substance with “inert mass.” Extension as an attribute that expresses God’s
essence must be conceived in terms of God’s power, a power that all modes
of that attribute further express in determinate ways.13 Another reason to
distance Spinoza from Bayle’s reading of him is provided by the “vacuum
argument” in Ethics Ip15s. I have claimed that this argument derives from
a concern to retain the “unity and completeness” of extended substance.14
These are compromised if one follows Descartes in taking this substance to

13 See §6.3.1.
14 See §5.2.2.
236 The Metaphysics of the Material World

be divisible into really distinct parts. The attribute of extension must be an ul-
timate source not only of bodily activity, but also of the essential unity of the
material world, which it could not if it were to be identified with Descartes’s
inert and divisible continuous quantity.
But even though what I have called quantity3 cannot be a fundamental fea-
ture of the Spinozistic material world, Spinoza himself indicates that it is a
real albeit derivative—​that is, modal—​feature of this world. The single and
indivisible divine power, as conceived through the attribute of extension, is
expressed by modes that are divisible into spatially distinguishable parts. In
this way Spinoza is able to say—​as he in fact does say in Ethics Ip15s—​that
“matter is everywhere the same, and that parts are distinguished in it only in-
sofar as we conceive matter to be affected in different ways” (G II.59).
We can understand the distinction between what I have called quan-
tity2 and quantity3 in terms of Spinoza’s own distinction between two kinds
of “Nature.” In the scholium to Ethics Ip29, the particular distinction is be-
tween Natura naturans (“naturing Nature”) and Natura naturata (“natured
Nature”). The former is “such attributes of substance as express an eternal
and infinite essence,” that is, “God insofar as he is considered a free cause”
(G II.71). In the case of extension, this would correspond to quantity2, some-
thing that is fundamental and indivisible. In contrast, natured Nature is “all
the modes of God’s attributes insofar as they are considered as things that
are in God, and can neither be nor be conceived without God” (G II.71). My
suggestion here is that the modes of extension are truly conceived in terms of
quantity3, something that is divisible but also derivative.15
Admittedly, the description of modal parts that we can draw from the
water example that Spinoza uses in this text is rather minimal: such parts
can be divided through separation (which presupposes that they have spa-
tial dimensions). Yet it turns out that Spinoza has more than this to say about
the nature of material modal parts. A good place to start is with a 1665 letter
to the Secretary of the Royal Society, Henry Oldenburg, in which Spinoza
responds to the request of his correspondent to address “that difficult ques-
tion concerning our knowledge of how each part of Nature agrees with its
whole and in what way it agrees with other things” (Ep XXXI, G IV.167).16

15 On the distinction between the two kinds of nature, see c ­ hapter 6, note 87. Thanks to Steve
Nadler for drawing my attention to the relevance of this distinction for Spinoza’s conceptions of
quantity.
16 This request was prompted by Spinoza’s claim in an earlier letter to Oldenburg that “men, like

all else, are only a part [partem] of nature, and . . . I do not know how each part of nature agrees
[conveniat] with the whole and how it coheres [coheareat] with the other parts” (Ep XXX, G IV.166).
 Material Monism and Bodily Parts 237

In addressing this question in that letter (hereafter, the Oldenburg Letter),

Spinoza offers perhaps his most explicit description of the sense in which
a particular body is a modal part that composes a modal whole. In light of
other textual evidence, we are to consider this modal whole as an “infinite
Individual” that comprises all finite bodily individuals. One must obviously
consider here whether the implication that nature is a mereologically com-
plex infinite Individual is entirely consistent with Spinoza’s monistic concep-
tion of the material world. There is in fact the claim in the literature that there
would be a conflict here had Spinoza intended his response to Oldenburg
to be understood in a straightforward way. However, I will argue that there
is a more literal interpretation of this response that does not compromise
Spinoza’s material monism.

7.2. The Mereology of the Infinite Individual

7.2.1. Mereology in the Oldenburg Letter

In arguing for the conclusion that Spinoza is a “priority monist” who holds
that the cosmos has genuine parts that are dependent on the whole, Schaffer
cites his claim in the Oldenburg Letter that “concerning whole and parts,
I consider things as parts of some whole to the extent that the nature of the
one so adapts itself to the nature of the other so that they agree with one an-
other as far as possible” (Ep 32, G IV.170). As Schaffer notes, Spinoza derives
from this mereological conception the result that “every body, in so far as it
exists modified in a definite way, must be considered as a part of the whole
universe, must agree [convenire] with its whole and must cohere [cohærere]
with the remaining bodies” (G IV.173). According to Schaffer, Spinoza’s view
here of the cosmos as “an integrated system,” which is perfectly in line with
priority monism, conflicts with the implication of “existence monism” that
there is only one concrete object, the cosmos as a whole, and so that there is
nothing further that needs to be integrated into it (2010: 68–​69).17

17 In his critical discussion of Schaffer, Guigon distinguishes between a “weak priority monism,”

which allows for existence monism, and a “strong priority monism,” which is incompatible with
existence monism, concluding that “Schaffer’s Priority Monism is a Strong Priority Monism about
the actual world” (Guigon 2012: 185). When I speak of Schaffer’s “priority monism,” I have in mind
what Guigon calls “strong priority monism.” I consider presently Guigon’s critique of the view that
Spinoza’s remarks to Oldenburg indicate that he is a monist in this sense.
238 The Metaphysics of the Material World

In the Oldenburg Letter, Spinoza offers a memorable illustration of the

way in which material parts combine to form an integrated system. He has
us imagine a parasitic worm living in blood that discerns various particles
of lymph, chyle, and so on. Insofar as this worm does not consider these
particles to be regulated by the nature of the blood, it considers them “as a
whole, not as a part.” But when it considers that the particles are constrained
to communicate their motions in a way that maintains the existence of the
blood, the worm conceives of the blood, rather than the various particles,
“as a whole and not as a part.” And when it recognizes that variations in the
blood derive not only from relations among its parts but also from “the rela-
tion of the motion of the blood and of its external causes to one another,” the
worm conceives the blood to have “the nature of a part and not of a whole”
(G IV.172).
Spinoza applies the worm-​in-​the-​blood example to the case of the uni-
verse as a whole as a closed causal system, claiming that since “all bodies are
surrounded by others, and are determined by one another to existing and
producing an effect in a fixed and determinate way, the same ratio of motion
to rest [eadem rationem motus ad quietam] always being preserved in all of
them at once,” it follows that “every body, insofar as it exists modified in a def-
inite way, must be considered as a part of the whole universe, must agree with
its whole and must cohere with the remaining bodies” (G IV.172–​73).
The indication in this letter—​crucial for Schaffer—​is that the material
universe is to be conceived as a complex whole composed of finite bodies
as parts. But can Spinoza mean this literally? Ghislain Guigon has recently
answered: not. In responding to Schaffer’s use of the Oldenburg Letter,
Guigon insists that Spinoza’s monism requires that Nature is “mereologically
simple” (Guigon 2012: 189), and thus is incompatible with the view that
it is composed of parts. The “Nature” to which Spinoza is referring in the
Oldenburg Letter, according to Guigon, is the “exactly one basic concrete
thing . . . which is mereologically simple” (2012: 189), that is, with respect to
the material world, extended substance itself.18
There remains Spinoza’s clear indication to Oldenburg that this Nature
is in some sense mereologically complex. However, Guigon claims that

18 Cf. Sacksteder 1977, which is less clear on this point, claiming in one place that the whole of na-

ture is to be identified with something that is “self-​caused as is God or nature” (154), and in another
that God “is that being to which the paired terms—​part and whole—​cannot be applied” (157). See
also the confusion in Sacksteder’s discussion cited in note 56. It is worth mentioning that Sacksteder
is one of the few to anticipate Guigon’s detailed consideration of the mereology of the Oldenburg
Letter.
 Material Monism and Bodily Parts 239

Spinoza’s talk of bodies as parts of an infinite universe “is a mere figure of

speech” that does not commit him to a version of Schaffer’s own priority
monism (2012: 186). Rather, according to Guigon, Spinoza was merely fol-
lowing Oldenburg’s lead in speaking as if Nature is a whole is composed of
parts, even though he knew that “strictly speaking, bodies are modes, not
parts, of Nature since there is only one substance and since modes of a sub-
stance are not parts of a substance” (2012: 200–​01).
An initial problem with Guigon’s position is that even if it is granted that
this talk is only a façon de parler, it cannot be something that involves mere
acquiescence to Oldenburg. For Spinoza also speaks in the Ethics of Nature as
composed of parts. Perhaps most striking is his claim in Ethics IVp4 that “it
is impossible that a man should not be a part of Nature, and that he should be
able to undergo no changes except those which can be understood through
his own nature alone, and of which he is the adequate cause” (G II.212). The
argument for this claim, which involves the notions of adequate and inad-
equate causation, need not detain us now.19 What is important for the mo-
ment is only that Spinoza is following no one’s lead here in speaking of “a
man,” including the human body, as a part of Nature.20
But this point seems to undermine only a subsidiary feature of Guigon’s ar-
gument. We still need to grapple with his central claim that Spinoza’s monism
commits him to the view that there are no genuine parts in Nature. In sup-
port of this claim, Guigon emphasizes a passage from the Korte Verhandeling
that I cited toward the end of the previous chapter.21 In this passage Spinoza
notes that “part and whole are not true or actual beings, but only beings of
reason; consequently in Nature22 there can be neither whole nor parts” (KV
I.2, G I.25). Guigon understands this claim in terms of the three-​fold distinc-
tion from the Cogitata metaphysica that I have highlighted. Recall that this
distinction yields composition that is substantial, modal, or merely of reason.
Guigon contends that the division of Nature into whole and parts that we find
in the Oldenburg Letter—​as well as, he could add, in the Ethics itself—​can be
for Spinoza merely a composition made by reason (Guigon 2012: 190–​93).

19 I return to the details of this argument in §7.3.1.

20 Similarly, Spinoza refers to the human mind as a part of a greater whole. Particularly explicit is
his claim that it follows from the fact that the mind “is the idea of a singular thing that actually exists”
that “the human mind is part of the infinite intellect of God [partem esse infiniti intellectus Dei]” (E
IIp11c, G II.94). Here Spinoza is thinking in particular of the human mind insofar as it adequately
perceives; see note 62.
21 See §6.3.2, at note 110.
22 There is an important footnote at this point in Spinoza’s text, to which I will return presently.
240 The Metaphysics of the Material World

Only by holding that the composition of Nature is a composition of reason

can Spinoza uphold his monist conception of the material world.
Nonetheless, a closer consideration of the context of the passage from the
Korte Verhandeling reveals that the view there is more restricted than Guigon
allows. In particular, the indication is that parts are denied of Nature only
considered as substance. For one thing, the passage itself includes a footnote
that indicates that by “Nature” Spinoza means only “substantial nature.” For
another, he claims immediately following this passage that though “division
never occurs in the substance,” it does occur “always and only in the modes
of substance” (G I.25; my emphasis). As I have indicated, in this text Spinoza
illustrates the point in terms of the example of the divisibility of water as a
mode, the same example that he uses later in the scholium to Ethics Ip15.
Just as in the case of the scholium, moreover, so the discussion in this earlier
text explicitly allows for the claim that modes of extended substance, such as
water quatenus water, are themselves divisible into further modal parts.
At times Guigon himself seems to suggest that Spinoza can allow for the
division of finite modes of extended substance into modal parts, as when
he claims that Spinoza “believes that modal composition occurs” when
such composition is limited to finite modes (Guigon 2012: 196).23 However,
Guigon also emphasizes that in the case of something that is infinite, such
composition “only captures composition of reason” (2012: 198). Thus, when
Spinoza applies mereological notions to the infinite universe as a whole, as
he does in the Oldenburg Letter, the parts must be what I have called merely
conceptual parts.24
Guigon’s argument seems to assume that if material parts were to com-
pose an infinite whole, then extended substance itself would be composite,
contrary to Spinoza’s monism. I suspect that a similar assumption underlies
Peterson’s argument against the reality in Spinoza of divisible spatial quan-
tity. Yet an overlooked possibility here is that what the parts compose is an
infinite modal whole rather than an infinite substantial extension. Moreover,
the move from the claim that extended substance is modified by an infinite
modal whole composed of finite modal parts to the conclusion that this

23 But cf. his claim that Spinoza “relates modal composition to our faculty of imagination” (Guigon

2012: 196), which seems to suggest—​in line with the position in Peterman that we considered in
§7.1.2—​that even the modal composition of finite modes is illusory. I am not sure how to reconcile
Guigon’s claim that composition in finite modes is modal rather than merely of reason with his sug-
gestion that modal composition is a product of the imagination.
24 Guigon himself uses Spinoza’s terminology from the Cogitata metaphysica in calling these parts

“beings of reason” (entia rationis); see Guigon 2012: 193–​95.

 Material Monism and Bodily Parts 241

substance itself is composed of such parts could be blocked by the restriction

of the composition relation to parts and wholes that are of the same type.
According to such a restriction, substantial wholes could be composed only
of substantial parts, and modal wholes only of modal parts. In terms of this
conception, the complaint in Spinoza about the conception of quantity by
the imagination is that the imagination falsely conceives of quantity, a modal
whole, as if it is composed of substantial parts. What this principle does not
require, however, is that extended substance cannot be modified by a mod-
ally divisible infinite quantity.
One feature of Guigon’s discussion that I haven’t addressed to this point is
his claim that Spinoza is committed to the mereological principle “that parts
are or must be prior to the whole they compose” (Guigon 2012: 189). But
surely infinite material Nature, as Spinoza conceives it, must be prior to par-
ticular finite bodies. Thus, Guigon understandably infers, this Nature cannot
be a whole composed of these bodies as its parts.
It must be granted that there are texts in which Spinoza seems to endorse
the sort of general mereological principle that Guigon cites. In the Cogitata
metaphysica, for instance, we find the claim that “it is clear in itself that com-
ponent parts are prior in nature at least to the thing composed” (CM I.5, G
I.258). Of course, we know that Spinoza himself did not accept every view he
offers in this text. But we seem to have evidence that he in fact embraced the
principle enunciated there, since he writes in a 1666 letter—​speaking on his
own behalf—​that “component parts must be prior in nature and knowledge
to what is composed of them” (Ep 35, G IV.181).25
Nevertheless, in both of these texts Spinoza is concerned with the spe-
cific issue of God’s substantial simplicity. In the Cogitata metaphysica, the
mereological principle is applied specifically to any substantial parts that
could compose the divine substance. The possibility that God could be com-
posed of modal parts is rejected by appeal not to this principle, but rather to
the fact that (as Descartes also admits) God has no modifications (G I.258; cf.
PP I.56, AT VIIIA.26). Moreover, in the 1666 letter Spinoza invokes the prin-
ciple of the priority of parts only to argue for the simplicity of a being “that
includes necessary existence.” The suggestion is that any parts of this being
would have to prior in nature to what they compose.26
25 There also is an early version of this principle in KV I, Dialogue 1, G I.30. For the view that

Spinoza’s accepts such a principle, see Melamed 2013: 47. As I indicate presently, I think this principle
needs to be modified somewhat in light of Spinoza’s remarks in the Oldenburg Letter.
26 So also in the passage from the Korte Verhanderling cited in note 25, the discussion focuses on

the purported parts that compose the one substance.

242 The Metaphysics of the Material World

In any event, the Oldenburg Letter provides particularly strong reason for
us to take seriously these restrictions on the mereological principle of the
priority of parts to wholes. For the clear indication in this letter is that parts,
insofar as they compose a whole, must be conceived in terms of the nature
of that whole, and so in this sense must be posterior to it. Thus, with respect
to the example of the blood, Spinoza tells Oldenburg that “all the parts are
controlled [moderantur] by the universal nature of the blood and compelled
[coguntur] to mutual accommodation as the universal nature of the blood
requires, so as to agree with one another in a definite way [certa ratione]” (G
IV.171). Here the parts (quatenus parts, Spinoza would add) must be con-
ceived in terms of the “universal nature of the whole,” and therefore must be
ontologically posterior to the latter.27
It is worth noting, if only incidentally, a remarkable similarity of the
mereology of this passage from the Oldenburg Letter to a view of parts in
Suárez that we encountered earlier. Recall Suárez’s claim that parts of con-
tinuous or homogeneous wholes are merely “incomplete and partial beings”
when united to a whole insofar as they are “as it were ordained to the com-
position of something else” (DM VII.23, I.258b).28 So also, there is a sense in
which the parts of blood that Spinoza mentions are ordained to compose a
whole. What makes these parts of a whole is the fact that they are controlled
and constrained by the nature of the blood, considered as a whole. It is often
assumed that Spinoza concluded, in line with a widely accepted mereological
axiom, that parts in general are ontologically prior to wholes. However,
Suárez’s mereology provides a precedent for the indication in the Oldenburg
Letter that parts—​quatenus parts—​must be conceived in terms of the wholes
they compose, and so must be ontologically posterior to them.
To be sure, the mereological principle that Spinoza endorses does preclude
the ontological posteriority of substantial parts. But my proposal has been
that the parts and whole with which he is concerned in the Oldenburg Letter
are modal. Thus, I would insist that when Spinoza refers in that text to “the
whole universe” that comprises all finite bodies, he has in mind an infinite
modal whole, rather than—​as Guigon would have it—​extended substance. In
fact, there is evidence for this suggestion in the letter itself. For immediately

27 I take this passage to provide some reason to reject the claim in Grey (2014: 453) that in the

Oldenburg Letter Spinoza takes parthood to require only causal accommodation to other parts, and
not a particular relation to the whole those parts compose. Though Spinoza does indeed say in this
letter that bodily parts “must cohere with other parts,” he also indicates that this coherence is itself
determined by the “universal nature” of the whole.
28 See the discussion of Suárez’s position in §2.2.2.
 Material Monism and Bodily Parts 243

following his discussion there of part and whole in material nature, Spinoza
adds the comment that “in relation to substance I conceive each part to have
a closer union with its whole” (G IV.174). The clear indication is that the rela-
tion of substance to the parts of nature is much closer than, and so, by impli-
cation, differs from, the relation of those parts to the whole they compose.29
In the Oldenburg Letter, Spinoza also provides a clue as to the precise na-
ture of this modal whole. The clue is found in his claim—​which I previously
highlighted—​that the parts of this universe are so constrained by the nature
of the whole that “the same ratio of motion to rest” is always “preserved in all
of them at once” (G IV.173). This clue directs us to a section from the second
part of the Ethics that, following David Lachterman, I call “the Physical
Digression.”30 In this section we find an account of an “Infinite Individual”
that has finite bodily “individuals” as parts. We will discover that the Infinite
Individual is for Spinoza an infinite mode of extension that, in contrast to ex-
tended substance itself, is composed of—​though also conditions—​its finite
modal parts.

7.2.2. The Infinite Individual in the Physical Digression

The Physical Digression is an extended aside on the nature of bodies that

follows the claim in the scholium to Ethics IIp13 that an actually existing
body, or finite mode of extension, is the object of the idea constituting the
human mind.31 In the course of his discussion of this proposition, Spinoza
asserts that the human body is no different from other “Individuals,” “all
of which, though in differing degrees, are however animate [animata]” (G
II.96). It is because he feels a need to explain further talk of “individuals”
being “animate” that Spinoza offers “to premise a few things concerning the
nature of bodies” (G II.97).
There are three sections of the following Physical Digression, the first
devoted to “the simplest bodies” (corpora simplicissima), the second to
“composite bodies” (corpora composita), that is, bodily “individuals,” and
the third to some postulates concerning the human body, a special case of

29 Section 7.3.1 is devoted to the question of how these two kinds of relations differ.
30 Lachterman 1977: 75. See also the discussion of this section of the Ethics in Garrett 1994, Garber
1994 (which labels it the “Short Physical Treatise”), and Peterman 2017 (which labels it the “ ‘Physical’
Interlude”).
31 Here I am drawing on my discussion in Schmaltz 1997: 205–​14, though I deviate from some

aspects of the treatment of the Physical Digression in this earlier discussion.

244 The Metaphysics of the Material World

a finite bodily individual. For our purposes, the first two sections are most
relevant. I have dealt previously with the first section, offering the view that
the simplest bodies are modal parts that constitute the immediate infinite
mode of motion-​and-​rest.32 However, at the end of a second set of axioms
in the Physical Digression, Spinoza indicates a transition to a consideration
of composite bodies (E IIp13s, ax, G II.99). He then immediately defines
a “body or Individual” as one in which several bodies “are so constrained
by other bodies that they lie upon one another, or if they so move, . . . that
they communicate their motions to each other in a certain fixed manner” (E
IIp13s, def, G II.100). An axiom following this definition indicates that in the
first case, the bodies are constrained to be at rest contiguous to each other,
producing hard or soft bodily individuals, whereas in the second case, the
bodies that are constrained to be contiguous are in motion and communicate
that motion in a certain fixed manner, producing a fluid body (E IIps, ax, G
II.100).33
Particularly crucial for the Oldenburg Letter is Spinoza’s claim in the
Physical Digression that bodily individuals have a particular “nature” or
“form” that consists in a union of internal parts that yields a specific “ratio
of motion and rest” (motus et quietis rationem) among those parts (E IIp13s,
def, G II.99–​100).34 Spinoza indicates that even when this individual gains
or loses parts, it remains the same individual just in case it retains that same
overall internal ratio of motion and rest (E IIp13s, lem4–​5, G II.100–​01).
Thus, in contrast to the determinate parts of matter that Descartes posits in
his correspondence with Mesland, Spinoza’s bodily individuals can persist
through changes in their material constitution.35 Descartes was committed
by his identification of the determinate part with a particular substantial
quantity to the conclusion that any change in this quantity must itself involve
a substantial change. But Spinoza claims that his bodily individuals

32 See §6.3.2.
33 See the similar reading in Garber 1994: 53–​54.
34 Spinoza earlier suggested the stronger view that individuals not merely have but are to be iden-
tified with a particular ratio of motion and rest, stating in the Korte Verhandeling that “each partic-
ular corporeal thing is nothing but a certain proportion of motion and rest” (KV II.App., G I.120).
However, elsewhere in this text he indicates the weaker position—​more in line with the view in the
Physical Digression—​that “the differences between [one body and another] arise only from the dif-
ferent proportions of motion and rest” (KV II.Pref., G I.52).
35 See the discussion in c
­ hapter 5 (particularly §5.1) of Descartes’s account of determinate parts of
matter in the Mesland correspondence.
 Material Monism and Bodily Parts 245

are not distinguished in respect to substance; what constitutes the form of

the Individual consists in the union of the bodies. . . . But this (by hypo-
thesis) is retained even if a continual change in bodies occurs. (E IIp13s,
lem4d, G II.100)

Because his monism precludes any sort of substantial change, Spinoza is free
to conceive of bodily individuals in terms of modal configurations that can
persist through changes in material composition.
Earlier I emphasized the problem in Descartes of accounting for the per-
sistence through change of ordinary material objects other than the human
body, the latter of which alone can so persist in virtue of mind-​body union.36
Insofar as these objects can be conceived in terms of a certain “ratio of mo-
tion and rest,” there seems to be no similar problem in Spinoza. Yet it must
be admitted that the notion of such a ratio is rather vague, and thus that it is
uncertain how precisely it applies to particular bodies.37 It is clear, from the
third section of the Physical Digression, that Spinoza includes the human
body among those with a nature that consists in such a ratio. In contrast to
Descartes, he seems to have the means to extend this category to other an-
imal bodies, which have a physical configuration similar to that of the human
body.38 Yet Spinoza leaves it open—​perhaps intentionally—​what other kinds
of bodies belong in this category.39
What is most relevant to Spinoza’s claim to Oldenburg that every fi-
nite body is “part of the universe as a whole,” however, is the view in the
Physical Digression that there is a particular hierarchical structure of
bodily individuals. We have seen that Spinoza distinguishes a first level of
individuals composed of simplest bodies from a second level of individuals
composed of other individuals.40 But he also posits a third level of individuals

36 See §5.3.2.
37 Gabbey notes—​correctly—​that Spinoza’s various formulations of the ratio lack “quantita-
tive anchoring” and therefore are “much too vague to allow an assessment of what exactly is being
claimed” (1994: 169). Gabbey continues by criticizing the attempt in Gueroult 1974: 555–​60, and in
Matheron 1969: 37–​41, to provide more precise formulations on Spinoza’s behalf (1994: 169–​70).
38 Recall the argument in §5.3.2 that Descartes cannot extend conclusions regarding the persist-

ence of the human body to other animal bodies, given the absence in the latter of mind-​body union.
Obviously, this similar consideration does not apply to Spinoza.
39 There is the suggestion in the literature, for instance, Spinoza left open the possibility that

artifacts such as tables and chairs are not genuine bodily individuals but mere entia rationis; see
Carriero 2017: 154–​55, 157n24.
40 It is not clear whether Spinoza thinks that individuals bottom out at a level at which there are

only individuals composed of the simplest bodies, or whether he holds that second-​level individuals
are always composed of other such individuals, without end. It may well be that first-​level individuals
are mere idealizations, what there would be if, per impossibile, we could reach a bottom level of
246 The Metaphysics of the Material World

composed of individuals at the second level. Spinoza then adds: “if we pro-
ceed in this way to infinity, we will easily conceive the whole of nature to be
one Individual, whose parts, that is, all bodies, vary in infinite ways, without
any change of the whole Individual” (E IIp13s, lem7s, G II.101–​02). At the
limit of the process of compounding individuals of ever-​increasing com-
plexity, we reach what I have called Spinoza’s “Infinite Individual,” an infinite
bodily individual that is composed of all other finite bodily individuals as
parts. Such an individual corresponds exactly to what Spinoza refers to as
“the whole universe” (totus universus) in the Oldenburg Letter, something
the nature of which constrains the finite bodily parts that constitute it in such
a way that “the same ratio of motion to rest is always preserved in all at once”
(G IV.172–​73).41
The suggestion in the Physical Digression is that the Infinite Individual is
an individual in the same sense that the finite individuals that compose it are.
However, this suggestion is not entirely unproblematic. For instance, in the
Physical Digression, Spinoza identifies bodies as “singular things” (E IIp13s,
lem3d, G II.98), and he earlier defined singular things as “things that are fi-
nite and have a determinate existence” (E IIdef7, G II.85).42 In order to hold
that an Infinite Individual is itself a body (which seems difficult for him to
deny), Spinoza must hold either that some bodies are not singular things or
that some singular things are infinite. In any event, we will discover presently
that he has good reason to treat the Infinite Individual as a special case of a
bodily individual.43
If the Infinite Individual were extended substance itself, there would be
grounds for following Guigon in thinking that the mereological composition
of this individual is merely one of reason, and not one that occurs in reality.44
After all, the Ethics indicates clearly enough that this substance must be indi-
visible. However, it turns out that Spinoza himself provides reason to identify

individuals. It is clear, however, that Spinoza needs the simplest bodies of which such individuals
would be composed to constitute the immediate infinite mode of motion-​and-​rest.
41 I take the difference between the claim in the Oldenburg Letter that the parts of the whole uni-

verse preserve the same ratio of motion to rest and the claim in the Physical Digression that the parts
of the Infinite Individual always preserve the same ratio of motion and rest to be merely verbal rather
than substantive.
42 Insofar as singular things, so defined, include the simplest bodies (and their correlates in other

attributes), they cannot simply be identified with finite individuals. However, it seems that at least all
finite individuals must count as singular things.
43 See the indication in §7.3.1 of an important difference in the way in which parts are related to

finite individuals, on the one hand, and to the Infinite Individual, on the other.
44 This point applies as well to the suggestion in Bennett 1984: 209–​10 that “Nature as an (organic)

‘individual’ ” is to be identified with God as substance.

 Material Monism and Bodily Parts 247

the Infinite Individual not with extended substance but rather with one of its
infinite modes.

7.2.3. The Infinite Individual as Infinite Mode

We have seen that in the Ethics Spinoza distinguishes between immediate

and mediate infinite modes, and identifies motion-​and-​rest as the immediate
infinite mode of Extension.45 Though he does not provide any example of a
mediate infinite mode in this text, he does when pressed in correspondence.
Once again, it is Tschirnhaus who presses for the clarification. In this case the
correspondence involved the mediation of Tschirnhaus’s fellow classmate at
Leiden, Georg Hermann Schuller (1651–​1679), who was himself a member
of one of Spinoza’s Dutch circles.46 By 1675, Tschirnhaus had access to a man-
uscript version of the Ethics, and he repeatedly asked his friend to send along
to Spinoza some queries concerning this text, one of which concerned the
nature of the infinite modes. Schuler belatedly relayed Tschnhaus’s queries
in a letter dated July 25, 1675. There he asks Spinoza on Tschirnhaus’s behalf
for examples both of “those things that are immediately produced by God”
and “those that are produced by some infinite mediating [mediante] modi-
fication,” adding that “Thought and Extension seem to me to be of the first
kind, of the second, Intellect in the case of Thought and Motion in the case of
Extension” (Ep LXIII, G IV.276).
The examples here are problematic. For Spinoza, of course, Thought and
Extension are attributes, which are not effects distinct from God’s essence
but that essence itself as conceived in a particular self-​contained manner.
Moreover, in the Ethics he offers Intellect and Motion (or motion-​and-​rest)
as examples not of effects of some infinite mode, but rather of infinite modes
that derive immediately from the absolute nature of a divine attribute.47 In

45 On the two kinds of infinite modes, see §6.2.2, and on motion-​and-​rest, see §6.3.2.
46 For more on Schuller, see Klever 1991.
47 Incidentally, there is some reason to doubt that Tschirnhaus was the source of these examples.

To be sure, Schuller does present himself as merely passing along comments from Tschirnhaus.
However, he also tells Spinoza that Thought and Extension, as well as Intellect and Motion, seem
to him to be examples of infinite modes. We have seen that Tschirnhaus was a particularly astute
critic of Spinoza. That Schuller was less astute is indicated by claim of K. O. Meinsma that he “was
not animated by the desire to undertake serious studies,” and that between him and Tschirnhaus,
“Tschirnhaus was the more intelligent of the two” (Meinsma 1984: 432, 435). It seems to me at least
possible that the examples were embellishments to Tschirnhaus’s query concerning the infinite
modes that Schuller supplied.
248 The Metaphysics of the Material World

what seems to have been a hastily composed response, dated a mere four days
after Schuller’s original letter, Spinoza politely refrains from pointing out
the difficulties here and offers instead the following constructive, if cryptic,
response:

Finally, the examples for which you ask are of the first kind in Thought,
absolutely infinite intellect; in Extension however motion and rest; of the
second kind however, the face of the whole Universe [facies totius Universi],
which, although varying in infinite ways, yet remains always the same. See
Scholium to Lemma 7 preceding Prop. 14, P. II. (Ep 64, G IV.278)

The lemma cited is precisely the passage from the Physical Digression in
which Spinoza describes the Infinite Individual as something “whose parts,
that is, all bodies, vary in infinite ways, without any change of the whole
Individual” (G II.102). I take the indication here to be that “the face of the
Universe” just is the Infinite Individual, itself an infinite modification of the
immediate infinite mode of extension, motion-​and-​rest.48
I have argued that we can identify Spinoza’s motion-​and-​rest with the total
quantity of force responsible for motion and rest in the material world.49
Given that this is correct, it seems natural to identify “the face of the whole
Universe” with an infinite modification of this total quantity, one that can be
understood in terms of a force that maintains the same ratio of motion and
rest despite continual changes in the identities of the bodily individuals it
comprises.50 However, it must be admitted that the identification of the na-
ture of the Infinite Individual with a certain force is not clearly indicated in
the Physical Digression itself.51 In this section of the Ethics, Spinoza explicitly

48 Spinoza almost certainly borrowed the metaphor of “the face of the Universe” from Cabbalistic

writings, which speak of the mediate emanations from the Infinite as “faces of the universe of the in-
finite.” For this point, see Wolfson 1934: I.244–​45. As Yovel points out, however, Spinoza could hardly
have accepted the anthropomorphic implication in these writings that the universe as a whole is a
“person” with humanlike features (Yovel 1989: 229n5).
49 See §6.3.2.
50 For what I take to be a similar account of the mediate infinite mode of extension, see Garrett

1994. Garrett relates his account to the “field metaphysic” account of extended substance in Bennett
1984, though Bennett’s own suggestion that modes are qualitative alterations of space (1984: ch.
4) does not seem to be in line with the dynamic tenor of Garrett’s account. I take the account that
I offer to be an alternative as well to the proposal in the work of Curley and others that infinite modes
are to be identified with laws of nature; see ­chapter 6, note 70.
51 See, for instance, Peterman’s comment that “given that . . . Spinoza doesn’t provide a mechanism

by which local motion can cause other motions, any reading of the ‘ratio of motion and rest’ in terms
of force is quite speculative” (2017: 117–​18). See also her similar skepticism concerning an under-
standing of motion-​and-​rest in terms of force or power, cited in c­ hapter 6, note 99.
 Material Monism and Bodily Parts 249

identifies the form or nature of an individual only with a “ratio of motion

and rest,” and this might appear to be some sort of configuration rather than
a force. This would be in line, for instance, with Daniel Garber’s proposal
that Spinoza conceived of bodily individuals in terms of “a particular struc-
ture of smaller bodies in motion and rest” that constitutes its nature (Garber
1994: 63).52
However, it would seem that the Infinite Individual is to be included among
the things that have a conatus by which they “strive to persevere in its being”
(E IIIp6), something that constitutes their “actual essence” (E IIIp7). Even if
the Physical Digression does not explicitly identify the ratio of motion and rest
that constitutes the “form or nature” of the Infinite Individual with this sort of
actual essence, surely this Individual requires the presence not only of some
stable structure but also of some force in terms of which that stability is to be
understood.
Though little may seem to turn on whether one takes the nature or form
of Spinoza’s Infinite Individual to be a structure or a force, I think there is a
substantive issue involved here. If the ratio that constitutes the nature of the
whole were merely a certain structure, it appears that we could understand
this nature simply in terms of certain relations among the constituent parts.
This would yield a kind of bottom-​up mereology of individuals in general,
and of the Infinite Individual in particular.53 However, I take such a view to
be in considerable tension with Spinoza’s indication in the Oldenburg Letter
that insofar as something is conceived as a part, it must be conceived in terms
of the whole of which it is part. The result here, it seems to me, is a kind of
top-​down mereology. In order to fully accommodate Spinoza’s account of the
conatus, we must attribute to the Infinite Individual not only a certain struc-
ture defined in terms of particular interactions among its parts, but also its
own force, deriving directly and uniquely from the nature of motion-​and-​
rest, that conditions and controls those interactions.54

52 See also Carriero’s description of the individual in terms of “stable structures” (2017: 144–​45),

and note his uncertainty about the relation of these structures to “force” (144n5).
53 I think this point also applies to the view of a material whole that Grey attributes to Spinoza; see

note 27.
54 See note 64. Spinoza may seem to suggest a bottom-​up conception of the Infinite Individual

when he claims in the Tractatus Theologico-​Politicus that “the universal power of Nature as a whole is
nothing but the power of all individual things taken together” (TTP XVI, G III.189). But the main ar-
gument in this text seems to require only that the whole and its parts equally have a distinctive power
by which they strive to persevere (conatur persevare). Since the power of Nature as a whole is that by
which God has a sovereign right to all things, that is, to everything in its power, the parts also have a
sovereign right to all that is in their power. This basic point is reflected also in the Tratatus politicus,
though without the (what I take to be misleading) suggestion that the power of Nature as a whole is
250 The Metaphysics of the Material World

A bottom-​up conception of the Infinite Individual reflects the mereological

principle that parts are prior to the wholes they compose. However, the
Oldenburg Letter requires that parts be conceived in terms of their wholes.
For Spinoza, of course, it clearly follows from the fact that modes must be
conceived through substance that they are posterior to substance. But I con-
tend that he must hold the same with respect to the parts that are conceived
through the wholes they compose. In the case of the substance-​mode rela-
tion, downward conception is coupled with downward causation: modes are
not only conceived in terms of substance, but also caused by substance. There
is some evidence that Spinoza holds that conception implies causation.55 But
if so, we can infer from the fact that parts are conceived through their wholes
that they are also caused by their wholes. And in any case, downward cau-
sation from wholes to their parts seems to be indicated by Spinoza’s talk in
the Oldenburg Letter of the parts of blood as a whole as being “controlled”
(moderantur) and “compelled” (coguntur) by “the universal nature of the
blood” (G IV.171). The conception of the nature of the whole in terms of a
causal force seems to be more in line with such talk than a conception of it in
terms of a structure constructed entirely out of its parts.
So far I have been comparing the Infinite Individual to infinite substance.
But of course, there is an important difference between the two: namely,
Spinoza insists that the latter is indivisible, but claims that the former is di-
visible into parts. But the fact that both are infinite might seem to render
this difference problematic. In the scholium to Ethics Ip13, Spinoza claims
that the indivisibility of substance follows simply from the fact that “the
nature of substance cannot be conceived unless as infinite” (G II.55–​56).
One might wonder why this same argument does not apply to the Infinite
Individual. After all, this individual also cannot be conceived except as infi-
nite. Yet Spinoza states that the Infinite Individual has as parts all finite bodily
individuals. How is this possible?

nothing over and above the power of its parts. In particular, the argument in this text is that since the
power by which natural things exist and act is nothing other than the power of God, and since God’s
right over all things derives from his power over them, these things have a right that is coextensive
with their power; see TP II.2–​3, G III.276–​77. For the view that the discussion in TP remedies flaws
in the TTP argument, see Grey forthcoming. In this article, however, Grey assumes—​contrary to
what I argue here—​that the TTP passage accurately reflects Spinoza’s own bottom-​up conception of
the Infinite Individual; see also notes 27 and 53.
55 In particular, the demonstration of E Ip25 suggests that if God is not the cause of the essence

of things, then those essences can be conceived without God (G II.67–​68), which relies on what is
roughly the contrapositive of ‘if x is conceived through y, then x causes y’. But cf. the reading of this
argument in Morrison 2013, on which it does not require the inference from conception to causation.
 Material Monism and Bodily Parts 251

Spinoza provides a response to this question in his Letter on the Infinite,

one which involves a crucial distinction between two different kinds of in-
finity. He writes in this text:

From everything now said, it is clear that some things are infinite by their
nature and cannot in any way conceived to be finite, that others [are infi-
nite] by the force of the cause in which they inhere, though when they are
conceived abstractly they can be divided into parts and regarded as finite.
(G IV.60)

What is infinite “by nature” cannot be composed of anything that does

not possess this nature. But anything that possesses the nature of infinite
substance cannot be distinguished from that substance. Thus, as Spinoza
indicates in the scholium to Ethics Ip15, the fact that infinite matter is “eve-
rywhere the same” shows that no parts can be distinguished in it (G II.59).
As we know, however, the Infinite Individual is infinite not by its nature,
but rather by “the cause in which it inheres,” namely, the immediate infinite
mode of motion and rest and, ultimately, the absolute nature of the attribute
of extension. The infinity of the Infinite Individual does not require that
its parts possess its nature. It thus does not require an absence of internal
differentiability, and so is compatible with divisibility into distinct bodily
individuals.
There is the claim in the previous passage that “when they are conceived
abstractly,” infinite modes “can be divided into parts.” As we have seen,
Peterman takes such a claim to reveal that Spinoza must deny that even
modes have a divisible spatial quantity. But again, the “abstract conception”
here is of the infinite mode as divisible into substantial parts. What such a
conception does not preclude is the view that the infinite mode is itself a
whole composed of finite modal parts.
In bringing together the various aspects of Spinoza’s discussion of ex-
tended substance and the Infinite Individual as the mediate infinite mode of
extension, we can derive the comparison in Table 7.1. In the case of extended
substance we have something that is infinite by nature, and so an indivis-
ible substance, and thus something that in no way can be composed of parts,
whether substantial or modal; this is Spinoza’s material monism. In the case
of the Infinite Individual, we have something that is infinite only by its cause,
and so is a divisible mode, and thus is something that is composed of modal
parts. Whereas extended substance is mereologically simple insofar as it
252 The Metaphysics of the Material World

Table 7.1 Spinoza on Two Kinds of Infinity

Extended Substance Infinite Individual

Infinite by nature Infinite by cause

Indivisible infinite substance Divisible mediate infinite mode
Not composed of substantial/​modal parts Composed of modal parts
Substance monism Mode pluralism (?)

lacks any sort of divisibility, the Infinite Individual has a complex mereology
that involves composition out of modal parts.
In the case of the Infinite Individual, do we have modal pluralism? I have in-
dicated in Table 7.1 that the answer is perhaps not entirely clear. It is evident
that we have, in contrast to the case of substance, a composition that involves
a plurality—​indeed, an infinity—​of modal parts. However, Schaffer’s plu-
ralism requires not merely that there is a plurality of parts, but in addition—​
and crucially—​that “the parts are prior to their whole” (2010: 31). We have seen
that though there are texts in which Spinoza seems to endorse a similar sort of
mereological principle, there is an implicit restriction to substantial parts and
wholes. Yet any modal pluralism based on such a principle is explicitly pre-
cluded by Spinoza’s own account of modal parts in the Oldenburg Letter. For,
again, the claim in this text is that a body is considered as a (modal) part only
insofar as it considered as conditioned by the nature of the (modal) whole that
comprises it. Given this claim, it seems that a part cannot be conceived entirely
in terms of its own nature, apart from its relation to the nature of the whole it
constitutes.
Even so, it is interesting that Spinoza claims in this letter that if the little
worm in the blood were to think of the particles that constitute the blood
without thinking of their relation to the blood as a whole, it “would consider
each particle as a whole, not as a part” (G IV.171). There is the tantalizing
suggestion here that even modal parts can be considered as wholes insofar as
they are considered on their own, as something prior to and independent of
the modal wholes they compose. It might be thought that the mere fact that
finite bodies are causally determined by, and so must be conceived through,
an infinite whole of which they are parts precludes any adequate conception
of these bodies apart from this whole. After all, the axiom in the Ethics that
the cognition of any effect “depends on, and involves” the cognition of its
cause (E Iax4, G I.46) seems to require that any conception of something
 Material Monism and Bodily Parts 253

apart from its causes be inadequate.56 Nonetheless, I argue that there are
reasons internal to Spinoza’s system to allow for the view that finite bodily
parts can be adequately conceived as modal wholes that bear a special rela-
tion to God as extended substance that is unmediated by infinite modes.

7.3. Parts, Modes, and Material Monism

7.3.1. Parts, Modes, Substance

I alluded previously to the following coda to Spinoza’s discussion in the

Oldenburg Letter of whole and part:

In relation to substance, I conceive each part to have a closer union

[arctiorem unionem] with its whole. For . . . since it is of the nature of sub-
stance to be infinite, it follows that each part pertains to the nature of cor-
poreal substance, and can neither be nor be conceived without it. (Ep 32, G
IV.172)

Certainly it is disconcerting that Spinoza speaks here of parts having an inti-

mate union with substance. After all, didn’t he himself insist in no uncertain
terms that substance can have no parts, that it must be completely indivis-
ible? However, I think we must understand him as telling Oldenburg that
something that is a part of some divisible whole also has a more intimate
union with the substance that part modifies, though not necessarily a union
that itself involves the mereological relation of part to whole. Indeed, the sug-
gestion in the Oldenburg Letter is that parts cannot bear the same relation
to substance that they bear to the divisible wholes they compose since every
part “pertains to the nature of corporeal substance, and can neither be nor be
conceived without it.”
Though he offers this suggestion to Oldenburg, Spinoza does not develop
it in his letter. In order to develop it, we need to avail ourselves of further ma-
terial that Spinoza provides in the Ethics. The central passage here is one that
I have cited as a counter-​example to Guigon’s claim that Spinoza is merely

56 Indeed, the view is Sacksteder 1977 is that the perspective of the worm in the Oldenburg Letter

is a false one since “no one of us is the whole we each might profess” (155). But cf. the claim in this
article—​closer to the view I defend here—​that finite beings such as ourselves and the worm “may be
considered or may consider themselves to be either part or whole” (157).
254 The Metaphysics of the Material World

borrowing the language of his correspondent in speaking in mereological

terms in the Oldenburg Letter. This is the proposition from the fourth part
of the Ethics that “it is impossible that a man should not be a part of Nature,
and that he should be able to undergo no changes except those that can be
understood through his nature alone, and of which he is the adequate cause”
(E IVp4, G II.212). The demonstration of this proposition draws on the def-
inition in the third part of an “adequate cause” as that “whose effect can be
clearly and distinctly perceived through it,” and of a “partial or inadequate
cause” as that whose effect “cannot be understood through it alone” (E IIIdef1,
G II.139). Spinoza begins with the earlier result in the Ethics that the power
by which a particular finite singular thing, such as a human body, perseveres
in being is God’s own power, not insofar as it is infinite, but only insofar as it
is restricted to the “actual essence” of that thing, that is, the conatus by which
the thing “strives to persevere in its being.”57 If one were able to conceive of
this part as an adequate cause of all its effects, those effects would be under-
stood through its nature alone. But then this part would have to cause its
effects through an infinite power, since something with only a finite power
must be acted on by external causes, and so be only an inadequate cause of
certain effects (E IVp3, d, G II.212). To conceive of the part as acting through
an infinite power is to conceive of it as reflecting “God’s infinite power,” and
so “the order of the whole of Nature.” But this conflicts with the result that
God preserves finite singular things only by a delimited power. Thus, a gen-
eralized version of Spinoza’s conclusion here is that “it is impossible that [a
finite singular thing] should undergo no other changes except those of which
[it itself] is the adequate cause, QED” (G II.213).58
The indication in the corollary to this proposition is that all finite singular
things are “necessarily subject to the passions,” must follow “the common
order of Nature,” and therefore must accommodate themselves to that order
“as much as the nature of things requires” (G II.213).59 But we know from the
Oldenburg Letter that to say that some finite body is part of a whole is to say
that it must accommodate itself to the nature of that whole, and at the limit,

57 Spinoza cites here the result in Ethics Ip24c that “God is the cause of the being of things” (G II.67)

and the result in Ethics IIIp7 that the “striving” (conatus) through which a thing strives to persevere in
its being is the “actual essence” of that thing (G II.146).
58 Spinoza’s own conclusion is in terms of “a man,” but of course it applies to all singular things that

are finite parts of Nature. Although the notion of a finite singular thing is something of a pleonasm
for Spinoza (see the passage cited at note 42), I add “finite” since the Infinite Individual is something
of a special case of a singular thing. See the discussion after note 67.
59 Again, this is a generalized version of Spinoza’s own claim in the demonstration, which is limited

to “a man,” as in the demonstrated proposition itself.

 Material Monism and Bodily Parts 255

to the nature of the infinite material universe considered as a whole.60 We can

now understand one instance of this limiting case to be a finite bodily indi-
vidual that is a part of the Infinite Individual insofar as it is the inadequate
cause of effects that derive from the accommodation of that part to the nature
of this individual as an infinite whole.
However, it is important to recognize that the conclusion here is not that
a finite bodily individual can be conceived only as a part of a whole, and
thus only as an inadequate cause of its effects. For we still have the possi-
bility that such an individual can be conceived to be an adequate cause of
certain effects; that is to say, certain effects can be understood through its
nature alone. Indeed, Spinoza asserts in the Ethics that “nothing exists from
whose nature some effect does not follow” (E Ip36, G II.77). The primary
effect here is persisting in being, something that Spinoza takes to derive from
“the striving by which each thing strives to persevere in its being” that, as we
have seen, he identifies in turn with the “actual essence” of that thing (E IIIp7,
G II.146). Insofar as even bodily parts can be considered as having a distinc-
tive sort of striving that can be understood through their nature alone, and
of which they are thus the adequate cause, they can be considered as wholes
and not simply as parts of a greater whole. And indeed, any effect of which
the internal force that regulates the motion and rest of a finite bodily part is
an adequate cause derives from that part considered just in itself, as a whole,
and not considered as part of a greater whole. This gives us a sense in which
the parts of a whole can be prior in nature and knowledge to the wholes they
compose, as Spinoza’s mereological principle requires.61
Far from compromising Spinoza’s monism, this account of the priority of
parts to wholes may actually serve to connect those parts to God in a partic-
ularly intimate way. Spinoza describes the adequate causation of an effect by
a finite mode in terms of the fact that God himself has that affect not insofar
as he is infinite, but just insofar as he constitutes the essence of the adequate
cause of that effect.62 In conceiving of something as a whole, and so as an ad-
equate cause of its effects, we therefore are able to connect that thing directly

60 See note 27.

61 Nonetheless, I think there is a sense in which the Infinite Individual is an adequate cause of
effects that can also be understood entirely through the nature of some finite thing, namely, insofar as
these effects are parts of infinite causal chains that themselves derive from this Individual as its own
infinite modifications. See the representation of this sort of view in Figure 6.2.
62 I am drawing on Spinoza’s view that when we have adequate ideas, God has those ideas “not in-

sofar as he is infinite, but only insofar as he is explained through the nature of the human Mind, or
insofar as he constitutes the essence of the human Mind” (E IIp11c, G II.95); see also E IIpp38–​40, G
II.118–​22.
256 The Metaphysics of the Material World

to God. In contrast, when something is conceived to be a part, and thus as an

inadequate cause of effects that are due to the nature of the whole that thing
composes, God can be said to have that effect not insofar as he constitutes the
essence of the inadequate cause, but only insofar as he constitutes the essence
of the whole of which that cause is part.63 If something could be conceived
only as a part and never as a whole, then God could never be said to have the
effects of that thing just insofar as he constitutes its essence.
The admission that even finite things bear some direct connection to God
is anticipated in the Korte Verhandeling, which introduces a distinction be-
tween the “particular” and “universal” providence of God. Spinoza defines
providence in general as “nothing but the striving we find both in the whole
of Nature, and in particular things, tending to maintain and preserve their
being.”64 Universal providence is then described as “that through which
each thing is produced and maintained insofar as it is a part of the whole of
Nature,” and particular providence as “that striving that each thing has for
the preservation of its being insofar as it is considered not as a part of Nature,
but as a whole” (KV I.5, G I.40). The very same finite thing can be consid-
ered either as part or as whole, then, depending on whether it is related to
the whole of Nature through God’s universal providence, or rather to its own
striving or conatus through God’s particular providence.
Whereas to my knowledge this distinction between universal and partic-
ular providence does not survive in the Ethics, I think the view that some-
thing can be part or whole, depending on how it is considered, can be found
in this text. Indeed, I take such a view to be crucial for Spinoza’s mature con-
ception of scientia intuitiva, a crucial if rather obscure feature of his system.
In the Ethics, this highest form of cognition is said to proceed “from an ade-
quate idea of the formal essence of certain attributes of God to the adequate
knowledge of the essences of things” (E IIp40s2, G II.122).65 We have seen
that finite things can be connected to the absolute nature of a divine attribute
through being parts of some infinite mode that follows from this nature ei-
ther immediately or mediately. This would correspond to the universal

63 Here I am drawing on Spinoza’s view that God is the cause of inadequate ideas “not only insofar

as he constitutes the nature of the human Mind, but insofar as he also has the idea of another thing
together with the human Mind” (E IIp11c, G II.95); see also E IIpp24–​31, G II.111–​15.
64 Note here the attribution of a striving for preservation to “the whole of Nature,” which is in line

with my claim in §7.2.3 that Spinoza’s Infinite Individual must have its own conatus.
65 This third form of cognition is distinguished from a first kind, deriving from opinion and imagi-

nation, which is only inadequate, and a second kind, deriving from the “common notions” of reason,
which like scientia intuitiva can only be adequate.
 Material Monism and Bodily Parts 257

providence of the Korte Verhanderling. However, scientia intuitiva requires a

more direct connection insofar as it involves an immediate procession to an
adequate idea of the essence of a thing from the adequate idea of the “formal
essence” of a divine attribute. Here we have a kind of particular providence
that relates the essence of a thing directly to God “insofar as he constitutes”
that essence.
The result that the essences of finite things derive directly from a divine
attribute might seem to conflict with Spinoza’s account of infinite modes. For
recall his argument that anything that follows from the absolute nature of a
divine attribute must itself be infinite and eternal.66 However, we have al-
ready encountered considerable evidence of a distinction in Spinoza between
two different ways in which modes can follow directly from God. There is the
derivation from God “insofar as he is infinite.” This pertains specifically to
the infinite modes, which cannot be limited by something else of the same
nature, and so must be infinite and (durationally) eternal. However, Spinoza
clearly and repeatedly indicates that modes can follow from God “insofar as
he constitutes the nature of ” a particular finite mode. This sort of derivation
serves to explain why there is no internal constraint on the action of that
mode. Thus, for instance, Spinoza emphasizes that the conatus of some sin-
gular thing that pertains to God insofar as he constitutes the essence of that
thing involves an “indefinite” rather than limited time (E IIIpp8, G II.147).
This feature of the thing is nonetheless consistent with limitation by external
things that express the same nature of an attribute, which is why it cannot be
said to follow from God insofar as he is infinite, and so cannot be said to be
itself infinite and (durationally) eternal.67
Here we have a way of allowing that finite parts can be “prior in knowledge
and in nature” to the wholes they compose: they can be conceived as wholes
that are directly related to God through the conception of a divine attribute.
But in the case of the parts of finite bodily individuals, at least, there is a fur-
ther sense of priority that is tied to the fact that such parts can exist apart
from the wholes they compose. I have highlighted Spinoza’s view that bodily
individuals can survive changes in their parts. But the complement of this
view is that the parts do not depend for their existence on the finite bodily

66 See §6.2.2, after note 61.

67 Cf. the discussion of this point in Peterman 2012: 56–​59. Peterman concludes that the essences
that Spinoza takes to derive directly from God are not instantiated in space and time. In contrast,
I hold that it is precisely the spatio-​temporal entity that is conceived to derive directly from God,
though only with respect to effects of which it is the adequate cause. See also my critique of Peterman
in §7.1.2.
258 The Metaphysics of the Material World

individuals they compose. Spinoza himself draws attention to this comple-

mentary point in the course of offering an explanation in the second part of
the Ethics of the fact that “the human Mind does not involve adequate cogni-
tion of the parts composing the human body” (E IIp24, G II.110). The dem-
onstration of this proposition appeals to the fact that the parts of the human
body “pertain to the essence of the Body itself only insofar as they commu-
nicate their motions to one another in a certain fixed manner.” However,
these parts “can be separated from the human Body and communicate their
motions . . . to other bodies in another manner, while the human Body com-
pletely preserves its nature and form” (E IIp24d, G II.110–​11). The fact that
the human body is composed of parts that can exist apart from the human
body, with features that do not depend on the latter, is the source of the fact
that our cognition of these parts must be inadequate. I think this result con-
cerning the human body can be generalized to any finite bodily individual.
That is to say, each such individual is composed of parts that can exist apart
from that individual, and so these parts cannot be adequately conceived just
in terms of the wholes they compose.
Interestingly enough, in this respect the relation of Spinozistic parts to the
finite wholes they compose is closer to the relation of Suárezian real accidents
to the substances in which they inhere than it is to the relation of Suárezian
modes to the res they modify. For Suárez also insists that real accidents have
a kind of reality that allows them to exist apart from the substances in which
they naturally inhere. To be sure, Suárez could not have granted even the
possibility of Spinoza’s claim that bodily parts that possess a sort of relative
independence are nonetheless themselves modes of God as extended sub-
stance. Even so, there is at least something of Suárez’s notion of real accidents
that survives in Spinoza’s very different metaphysical system.
It is important to note, however, that the relative independence of
Spinozistic parts is not exhibited in the case of the relation of these parts
to the Infinite Individual. We have seen that he does take these parts to be
conceivable apart from this individual with respect to effects of which the
parts are adequate causes. Yet this fact cannot require the possibility of ex-
istence apart from that individual. After all, there is no other individual out-
side of the Infinite Individual with which the parts could unite. The Infinite
Individual thus counts as an exception to the rule in Spinoza that parts are
prior to the wholes they compose in the sense that they can exist apart from
those wholes. As indicated previously, Spinoza sometimes defines a bodily
individual in a manner that requires that it be a finite thing. We can now see
 Material Monism and Bodily Parts 259

some reason for this insofar as the Infinite Individual can be only a special
case of an individual. In particular, in contrast to the case of finite bodily
individuals, the Infinite Individual is composed of parts that are inseparable
from it.
As we know, Descartes took the fact that one thing is inseparable from an-
other, though that other is separable from it, to be a sure sign that the former
is a mode of the latter.68 Had Spinoza adopted a similar view, it would have
been natural for him to conclude that the parts of the Infinite Individual are
finite modes of it. However, we have seen the result in his system that only a
single infinite mode can follow from any other infinite mode.69 Such a mode
modifies but does not compose the infinite mode from which it follows. By
the same token, finite parts that compose an infinite mode cannot modify it.
There thus is in Spinoza a need to distinguish the mereological relation of
part to whole from what for him is the fundamental ontological relation of
mode to subject.
Such a distinction is in fact directly relevant to Spinoza’s enigmatic claim
to Oldenburg that parts have a more intimate union with substance than they
have with other wholes they compose. Parts of finite bodily individuals can
be conceived apart from these individuals insofar as they can exist apart from
them. And even with respect to the Infinite Individual, where this condition
does not hold, it is still the case that finite bodily parts can be conceived as
wholes rather than merely as parts of that individual. Thus, there are var-
ious ways in which the parts are independent of the wholes they compose.
However, there is nothing analogous in the case of the relations of bodily
modes to extended substance. As we know, modes are by definition “that
which is in another through which it is also conceived” (E Idef5, G II.45), and
only substance can be “conceived through itself ” and thus be that “whose
concept does not require the concept of another thing, from which it must be
formed” (E Idef3, G II.45). The concept of any mode will always require the
concept of the substance it modifies, with respect to any of its effects. Insofar
as bodily parts are also modes, they can, as Spinoza tells Oldenburg, “neither
be nor be conceived” without extended substance. But considered as parts
of a whole, these modes can exist without being united to the other finite
individuals they compose, and they can be conceived apart from the wholes

68 We also know that Suárez took the sign to be only “highly probable” and allowed for exceptions

in the case of the relations between God and creatures and between a whole to its integral parts; see
Table 2.1.
69 See §6.3.2, after note 84.
260 The Metaphysics of the Material World

they compose, up to and including the Infinite Individual. It is in this sense

that Spinoza can say that a finite bodily part has a more intimate relation to
extended substance than it has to any whole it composes.
Though Spinoza begins in the Ethics with definitions of substance, at-
tribute, and mode, he brings in the mereological notions of part and
whole through the backdoor, so to speak, in a section of this text on bodily
individuals that is something of a side note. Yet the Oldenburg Letter draws
attention to the fact that such notions cannot be understood simply in terms
of Spinoza’s basic ontological categories. Parts of material wholes must be
modes of extended substance, to be sure, but they are modes with special
features that go beyond their modal dependence on this substance. In the
Physical Digression, Spinoza indicates that whereas certain modes of a
human body are individuals that compose it, other modes of this body, such
as being fluid, soft, or hard, are merely affections of its constituent parts,
and so of the human body itself (E IIp13s, post1–​2, G II.102). We know that
Spinoza allows that the parts that compose a human body can exist apart
from that body, just as the component parts of any finite bodily individual
can exist apart from that individual. However, he never suggests that the
affections of those parts can exist apart from the parts so affected. In this
sense the relation of the affections to the parts they affect is more similar to
the relation of mode to substance than it is to the relation of part to whole.
In the first chapter, I noted that Bayle rejected as spurious the Spinozistic
distinction between the parts of extended substance and its modes.70
However, in the case of both Suárez and Descartes, there is a need to distin-
guish parts from modes. For Suárez, integral parts of quantity are accidental
res, whereas for Descartes such parts are substantial res, but both kinds of
res have an ontological status distinct from that of their modes. To be sure,
Suárez allows that parts inhere, a relation that Descartes restricts to modes.71
Nonetheless, both agree that the mereological relation of composing is dis-
tinct from the affective relation of modifying.
We have seen that Spinoza differs from Suárez and Descartes alike in pos-
iting parts and wholes that are neither accidental nor substantial res, but rather
modes.72 However, what remains in Spinoza is the view that the mereological
relation of composing is irreducible to the relation of modifying.73 Finite
70 See §1.1.2, at note 11.
71 Cf. §3.1.1, at note 27, and §4.3.1, after note 70.
72 As indicated in §7.1.1, after note 4.
73 I take this result to support a pluralist interpretation of Spinoza’s understanding of metaphysical

dependence, as opposed to the monist interpretation reflected, for instance, in Della Rocca’s claim
 Material Monism and Bodily Parts 261

bodily parts compose, but do not modify, the Infinite Individual. Affections
of those parts modify, but do not compose, the parts.74 In addition to the
notions of extended substance and its modes, then, Spinoza needs the dis-
tinct mereological notions of part and whole to complete his ontology of the
material world.

7.3.2. Material Monism: Schaffer and Bayle

I appealed at the outset of this chapter to Schaffer’s insistence that “histor-

ical monism” is not to be identified with the view that the cosmos is an in-
divisible whole. This latter view, which Schaffer calls “existence monism,” is
to be contrasted with “priority monism,” which, as we have seen, Schaffer
links explicitly to Spinoza. The latter form of monism allows that the cosmos
is composed of parts, but also requires that the cosmos as a whole is more
fundamental than, and thus is prior to, its parts. More specifically, the parts
must be conceived as parts of an “entangled system” that is itself an irreduc-
ible whole (2010: 32). Schaffer indicates that this sort of view relies on the as-
sumption that “composition is not identity.” That is to say, though the cosmos
is composed of its “proper parts,” “it is not identical to any plurality of its
many proper parts” (2010: 35).
But now we must ask: Where is Spinoza in all of this? The first point is that
there is a need to unpack the notion of “part.” Though Schaffer assumes only
one notion of part—​namely, proper parts that compose a whole—​it should
be clear by now that Spinoza himself considers two kinds of parts, substan-
tial and modal.75 Spinoza’s material monism clearly does not allow for the
possibility that extended substance is composed of any real parts. Since this
substance is infinite by nature, no such composing parts can be distinguished
in it. Though this may seem to be a version of the existence monism that
Schaffer disparages, there is an interesting twist in Spinoza, namely, the ad-
mission that Nature as a whole can be composed of modal parts. Whereas the
proper parts of the cosmos that Schaffer invokes are supposed to compose
the most fundamental entity, namely, the cosmos as a whole, modal parts

that for Spinoza “dependence relations are everywhere the same,” and more specifically, are just con-
ceptual relations (2008: 66). See the similar monist interpretation in Newlands 2010.
74 Likewise, as I have indicated, the infinite modes that follow from a divine attribute insofar as that

attribute is modified by the Infinite Individual modify, but do not compose, that individual.
75 That is, two kinds of real parts; we can set aside here what I have called his merely conceptual parts.
262 The Metaphysics of the Material World

do not compose the extended substance that Spinoza takes to be the most
fundamental entity in the material world. Rather, as we know, finite bodily
individuals compose a modal whole that Spinoza identifies with the Infinite
Individual.
In one important respect, Spinoza’s conception of the Infinite Individual
is similar to Schaffer’s conception of the cosmos as a whole. In particular,
Spinoza is committed to the position that in the case of this individual, the
principle that composition is not identity holds. For just as each of the finite
bodily individuals that compose the Infinite Individual has an individuating
“form” that results in the persistence of a certain internal ratio of motion
and/​to rest, so also the individual composed of these other individuals has
as its own distinctive form that is causally responsible for the persistence of
the overall ratio of motion and/​to rest in the material world as a whole. The
infinite whole is more fundamental than its composing parts insofar as these
parts have features that derive from, and so must be conceived through, the
form of this whole.76 But even in this case the whole cannot be most funda-
mental, given that it is an infinite modal whole that must, as in the case of all
bodily modes, be caused by extended substance and conceived through that
substance as its affections.
Yet—​and here is a second twist in Spinoza—​there also is a sense in which
finite bodily individuals can be considered to be more fundamental than the
infinite modal whole they compose. These finite individuals have features
that can be conceived through their own forms, apart from any consid-
eration of their relation to the whole they compose. With respect to these
features, what Schaffer says of priority pluralism is true, namely, that the
parts are fundamental, “with metaphysical explanation snaking up from
the many” (2010: 31–​32). Yet with respect to Spinoza’s view of the relation
of modes to extended substance, what Schaffer says of priority monism is
true, namely, that that there is a single fundamental entity, “with metaphys-
ical explanation dangling downward from the One” (Schaffer 2010: 31). Even
here, however, we need to add the non-​trivial proviso that what explanation
dangles down toward are modes of this substance rather than, as in Schaffer,
parts that compose the fundamental material entity. To be fair, Schaffer him-
self admits that each of the historical monists, including Spinoza, “has his

76 Here again, though, notice that this conception cannot for Spinoza imply the inherence of the

parts in the whole. This serves to confirm the earlier result in §6.2.1 that when Spinoza says that
modes are conceived through another (E Ipdef5, G II.45), he means that they are conceived through
another as inhering in that other.
 Material Monism and Bodily Parts 263

own idiosyncratic doctrines, and it is highly doubtful that there is any one
precisely formulated monistic doctrine that would fit each philosopher in
the tradition” (2010: 66). However, a closer consideration of the details of
Spinoza’s material monism reveals the need to distinguish the monism of ex-
tended substance from the holism of the Infinite Individual. And this dis-
tinction is crucial if one is concerned—​as Schaffer surely is—​to determine
whether the material universe can be said to be a fundamental whole com-
posed of particular bodies as its proper parts.
In turning from Schaffer to Bayle, we return to the starting point of the
discussion in this book. With respect to Bayle’s critique of Spinoza, the
most pressing question was whether we can reconcile Spinoza’s material
monism with his claim that nature as a modal whole is composed of finite
bodily individuals as its parts. Of course, on one level these views are obvi-
ously compatible. The finite individuals compose a modal whole, and thus
not extended substance itself. Again, the latter is absolutely indivisible and
thus cannot be composed of either substantial or modal parts. But Bayle’s
challenge to Spinoza is to explain precisely how the absolutely indivisible ex-
tended substance is related to the finite bodily individuals and to the Infinite
Individual they compose.
An initial response here is that there is a causal/​conceptual relation: the
nature of the Infinite Individual is caused by/​conceived through the na-
ture of extended substance (by way of the nature of motion-​and-​rest), and
the natures of the finite bodily individuals (conceived as parts of an infinite
whole) are caused by/​conceived through the nature of this Infinite Individual.
This is a reflection of the sort of top-​down mereology that I find in Spinoza.
Yet Bayle could press again: How could something that lacks divisible
extension be the cause of divisible extension? This is just a version of the
question in Bayle directed against an “apologist for Spinoza,” namely, how
an “intelligible extension” could be the source of something that is formally
rather than merely intelligibly extended.77 The particular question of how
something that lacks actual divisible extension could cause such an exten-
sion might seem to have some force, given what Spinoza himself says. After
all, Spinoza claims in the first part of the Ethics that “if things have nothing in
common with one another, one of them cannot be the cause of the other” (E
Ip3, G II.47). Doesn’t the fact that God as indivisible extended substance lacks

77 See the reference indicated in note 11.

264 The Metaphysics of the Material World

the divisible extension of his modes show that he has nothing in common
with these modes, and so cannot be the cause of them?
However, it must be noted that Spinoza has a very specific understanding
of what it takes for one thing to have nothing in common with another. The
relevant demonstration appeals to the axiom that “things that have nothing
in common with one another also cannot be understood through one an-
other, or the concept of the one does not involve the concept of the other”
(E Iax4, G II.46). Yet Spinoza himself insists in the Physical Digression that
“all bodies agree in certain things” insofar as “all bodies agree in that they in-
volve the concept of one and the same attribute” (E IIp13s, lem2d, G II.98).
What is crucial here to the definition of body as “a mode that in a certain and
determinate way expresses God’s essence insofar as he is considered as an ex-
tended thing” (E IIdef1, G II.84). So as Spinoza sees it, the divisible extension
of modes must be conceived through the indivisible extension of God. Thus,
cause and effect do have something in common after all, and the Bayleian
problem of causation is eliminated.
Yet on Bayle’s behalf, let’s press further: why hold that divisible extension
must be conceived through indivisible extension? On a Cartesian concep-
tion, divisible extension is something that exists in se, as an ultimate subject
of the modes of this extension. Nothing in the conception of such a subject
requires the conception of God. To be sure, Descartes holds that we do need
the concept of God in order to be in a position to conceive of the existence
of this extension. This is in virtue of the fact that all creatures have an essen-
tial dependence for their initial and continuing existence on a Creator that
depends on nothing else for its existence.78 But it seems that we do not need
the concept of God to conceive of the way in which an extended substance
exists in se, as an ultimate subject. Here the contrast with the modes of such a
substance suffices.
It is at just this point, I think, that we need to take Spinoza’s “power on-
tology” seriously. As his remarks to Tschirnhaus indicate, extended sub-
stance is to be conceived not as the ultimate receptive subject of properties,
but rather as the ultimate source of activity in the material world.79 Likewise,

78 This is related to the point in Descartes that there is no notion of substance that applies univo-

cally to God and creatures; see §4.1.2, after note 35. See also the discussion of the relation of this point
to Spinoza (and Suárez) in §6.1.1, after note 4.
79 Cf. the attempt in Huenemann 2004 to conceive of the relation of Spinozistic extended sub-

stance to its modes in terms of the relation of scholastic prime matter to bodily properties. However,
it seems to me that this conception does not fully accommodate Huenemann’s own point that, given
Spinoza’s remarks to Tschirnhaus, “it seems something beyond mere inert, quantitative extension
must be attributed to matter if matter is to be anything other than a static, homogeneous soup” (32).
 Material Monism and Bodily Parts 265

material modes are to be conceived not as properties that a subject receives,

but rather as “expressions” of divine power as exhibited in the material world.
Previously I have argued that Spinoza’s conception of modes retains a con-
nection to the notion of inherence, as indicated perhaps most clearly by his
insistence that God is an immanent cause.80 However, for him material in-
herence is to be understood not—​as in the case of Descartes—​in terms of
the determination of a three-​dimensional substantial part of quantity by a
two-​dimensional mode of extension, but rather as a “certain and determinate
expression” of God’s power as an extended thing. Since this sort of expression
is not infinite by its very nature, it can be composed of parts that have their
own independent natures. But since God’s own material power—​what is it-
self expressed by all material modes—​is infinite by its very nature, it cannot
be composed of such parts: everything in it “must pertain to the nature of
corporeal substance,” as Spinoza tells Oldenburg, and so no parts can be
distinguished in it.
For Descartes, extended substance is in a sense simply a substantialized
version of the Suárezian accident of impenetrable quantity.81 As Bayle sees
it, this is just the view Spinoza’s Cartesianism requires that he accept. But
I hope that we are now in a position to appreciate that Spinoza followed his
own path in constructing an account of extended substance and its modes.
Of course, this is not to deny that there are connections to Descartes’s views
on these issues; indeed, in this and previous chapters I have been concerned
to highlight such connections. So also, I have argued that these views are
themselves linked in various ways to the sort of scholastic account that we
find in Suárez. Yet Spinoza radically transformed the metaphysics of the ma-
terial world that he received from Descartes, yielding an account that is in
some respects as different from Descartes’s as Descartes’s account is from
Suárez’s.

80For this argument, see §6.2.1, around note 46.

81“In a sense”: there are additional differences indicated in §4.2.2 between the conceptions in
Suárez and Descartes of the relation of quantity to impenetrability, as well as the differences with re-
spect to the issue of per se unity of continuous quantity that I will highlight in the epilogue.
 Epilogue

Having reached the end of our journey, I propose to offer a few further
reflections on the critique of Spinoza in Bayle that provided our roadmap.
Earlier I mentioned in passing the fact that Bayle’s interpretation of Spinoza’s
conception of modes and of their relation to substance has entered into
scholarly discussion of Spinoza’s metaphysics. In particular, I pointed out
that Bayle is a target of Curley’s objection to the view that Spinozistic modes
inhere in substance.1 This objection has prompted a debate over whether
Bayle was correct in assuming that inherence is an essential feature of the
modes that Spinoza posits. I must admit to not being entirely comfortable
with this debate. The source of my unease is not the question of whether in-
herence is a defining feature of Spinozistic modes, which is natural enough.
Rather, I am a bit unsettled by the suggestion in the literature that the proper
answer to this question turns on whether Spinoza is faithful to an account of
accidents that derives ultimately from Aristotle.2
Indeed, I take there to be one point in the debate over Spinoza at which
the focus on Aristotle has led us in a wrong direction. I have mentioned the
claim in Curley, in response to Bayle’s depiction of Spinoza in the Dictionaire,
that Spinoza’s modes seem to be “of the wrong logical type” to be predi-
cated of a subject insofar as they are particular things rather than qualities.3
In response to this claim, John Carriero has appealed to the distinction in
Aristotle between inherence and predication (1995: 246–​49). As we have
seen, Aristotle claims explicitly that there are certain universal features that
are predicated of (“said of ”) subjects, even though they cannot be said to in-
here in (“exist in”) them.4 But then, according to Carriero, even if it is granted

1 See the reference in note 3.

2 I have in mind here the debate that derives from the rejection in Curley 1969 of an understanding
of Spinozistic modes in terms of Aristotelian inherence, and that involves the attempt to reinstate
such an understanding in responses to Curley such as Bennett 1984 and 1991 (the latter of which is
a response to Curley 1991), Carriero 1995, Nadler 2008, and Melamed 2013. See also the literature
cited in note 9.
3 See §6.2.1, after note 40.
4 This is the distinction in Aristotle between “secondary” and “primary” substances, or in my ter-

minology, between type I and type II items; see §1.2.1.

The Metaphysics of the Material World. Tad M. Schmaltz, Oxford University Press (2020).
© Oxford University Press.
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190070229.001.0001
268 Epilogue

that Spinoza’s modes are particular things that cannot be predicated of a sub-
ject, the Aristotelian scheme leaves open the possibility that they inhere in a
subject.
One complication for Carriero is that Aristotle does not take predicability
and inherence to be mutually exclusive, and indeed he allows for certain items
that can be both predicated of and inhere in a subject.5 However, Carriero
emphasizes items that Aristotle takes to inhere in a subject but not to be predi-
cated of it.6 On his reading of Aristotle, these items are fully particularized “in-
dividual accidents” that inhere in primary substances. Carriero admits that this
reading is controversial, citing the same dispute between Ackrill and Owen that
I considered in the first chapter.7 However, he attempts to defend the intelligi-
bility of individual accidents by appealing to “the medieval Aristotelian tradi-
tion,” as represented particularly in the work of Thomas Aquinas. As Carriero
sees it, Aquinas takes accidents to be “real beings” that—​as in the case of all real
beings—​are fully particular. The conclusion here is that Curley’s objection that
Spinozistic modes are of the “wrong logical type” to be particulars rests on a
“dismissal of the notion of an individual accident that is not supported by the
medieval Aristotelian tradition’s way of thinking about accidents” (1995: 259).
However, it is significant that the individual accidents of medieval
Aristotelianism are the source of the scholastic conception of “real accidents.”
On Bayle’s narrative, such accidents are to be contrasted with the modes that
certain later scholastics introduced, and that Descartes and Spinoza subse-
quently offered as replacements for real accidents. In light of this narrative, we
should focus not on the development of the notion of accidents as real partic-
ularized beings in medieval Aristotelianism, but rather on the introduction
in early modern scholasticism of what, pace Bayle himself, was a new notion
of mode.8
This is one way in which I take Carriero’s appeal to Aristotle and medieval
Aristotelianism to have led us in the wrong direction. Another derives from
the focus on the purported problem from Bayle of the predicability of partic-
ular things. This problem has been prominent in responses to Curley other
than Carriero’s.9 However, it is worth noting that the objections to Spinoza

5 These correspond to what I have called in §1.2.1 type IV items.

6 These correspond to what I have called in §1.2.1 type III items.
7 See §1.2.1, after note 23.
8 Recall again the point from ­chapter 1 that Bayle takes the late scholastic notion of mode to be the

revival of Aristotle’s accidents.

9 See, for instance, Melamed 2013: ch. 1, and Huenemann 2004. On Huenemann’s interpretation,

see also c­ hapter 7, note 79.

 Epilogue 269

in the Dictionaire that I canvassed in the first chapter do not seem to broach
the specific difficulty of predicating particular things of a subject. The first
objection appeals to the fact that that there must be particular portions of
extension that compose God as extended matter, whereas the second takes
the fact that modes are not really distinct from their subject to show that any
change in the modifications must involve a real change in what they modify.
The problem of predicating particular things of a subject seems to me to be
simply absent.10
To be sure, the problem of predicability may appear initially to be relevant
to an additional Bayleian objection to Spinoza’s monism that I have not con-
sidered previously. This is the objection that “God cannot be the subject of in-
herence of man’s thoughts since these thoughts are contrary to one another”
(DHC, “Spinoza,” rem. N, IV.260b).11 According to Bayle, Spinoza is com-
mitted to the view that the same subject, God, has contradictory thoughts at
the same time when, for example, Peter affirms a proposition whereas Paul
denies it. The result is that “two contradictory terms are then true of him,
which is the overthrow of the first principles of metaphysics” (IV.261a). Yet
notice that the issue here is not whether the different thinkers Peter and Paul
can be predicated of God, but rather whether their contradictory proper-
ties can be attributed to him as their subject. For Bayle, then, the problem of
predicability concerns the predication to a subject not of individual things,
but rather of mutually incompatible affections.
Rather than focusing on the question of whether particular things are
predicable, I think it better to emphasize the sort of concerns that Alexander
Douglas has recently highlighted in the context of a discussion of the logic of
Spinoza’s use of the notion of quatenus. I have noted previously that the use of
quatenus expressions is ubiquitous in the discussions of God in the Ethics.12
Douglas shows that one question that is important for Bayle is whether such
expressions are subject to inferences secundum quid ad simpliciter. That is to
say, the question is whether from statements of the form, “God quatenus R is
P,” one can formally derive statements of the form, “God is P.” If so, then it is

10 See §1.2.2.
11 This is in fact the feature of Bayle’s discussion of Spinoza that is highlighted in Curley 1969: 12–​
13. As I understand him, Curley takes Bayle’s argument to involve the following two steps: (1) elim-
inate the problem of predicating individuals to God by predicating their properties directly to him;
and (2) show that this sort of predication leads to contradictory results. As I read the passage, how-
ever, Bayle’s argument proceeds directly to step (2) by appealing to Spinoza’s purported conception of
God as the sole ultimate subject of all modifications.
12 See c
­ hapter 7, note 1.
270 Epilogue

easy to generate contradictions for Spinoza. For instance, we have seen that
Spinoza holds that God quatenus mode is divisible, whereas quatenus sub-
stance he is indivisible. But then there is the result that God is both divisible
and indivisible. At this point, according to Douglas, it can appear that Bayle
has been vindicated.
In defense of Spinoza, however, Douglas appeals to a view in early modern
scholastic logic that blocks the relevant inference by taking quatenus to be an
operator that introduces a new logical subject. Thus, “God quatenus mode” and
“God quatenus substance” are distinct names, and it cannot be assumed from
the fact that the subject named by the first is divisible that either God or God
quatenus substance is divisible as well (2018: 265–​72).13
As Douglas himself admits, this result on behalf of Spinoza is rather limited.
That is, the relevant scholastic logic shows only that claims in Spinoza to the
effect that God quatenus substance is indivisible whereas God quatenus mode
is divisible do not yield a contradiction as a formal consequence. But there re-
mains the possibility that the different names “God quatenus substance” and
“God quatenus mode” do in fact denote one and the same entity, and thus that
there is a contradiction as a material consequence (2018: 275). And Bayle in fact
insists that Spinoza’s substance monism commits him to a contradiction given
the “uncontestable maxim” that “all terms we apply to a subject to signify what it
does or what it suffers apply properly and physically to substance and not to its
accidents” (DHC, “Spinoza,” rem. N, IV.261a). Insofar as there is only one sub-
stance, there also is only one true subject of predication, and thus what holds for
God quatenus mode holds also for God (that is, God quatenus substance).
Is Bayle’s maxim “uncontestable”? Here the history of the development of
the notion of mode proves to be useful. As Suárez sees it, a mode does not
have enough reality to be itself the subject of modes. Thus, the only possible
subjects of changes involving modes are the res that the modes modify.14
However, I have noted that Descartes introduces the possibility that a mode
is itself a subject of other modes.15 This introduction does seem to undermine

13 Douglas cites in particular the 1605 Syntagma Logicum Aristotelico-​Rameæum of the German

theologian Amandus Polanus von Polansdorf, the 1638 Logica Hamburgensis of the German logician
Joachim Jungius, and the 1644 Institutionum Logicarum of the Dutch scholastic Franco Burgersdijk.
Alexander contrasts the accounts in these texts with the account in the Logique, Ou l’Art de penser
of Arnauld and Nicole (first ed., 1662), the latter of which does license secundum quid ad simpliciter
inferences. Alexander notes that Bayle cites the Logique in his Dictionaire and speculates that he took
the fact that the analysis in this text allows for the validity of secundum quid ad simpliciter inferences
to support his criticism of Spinoza (2018: 277).
14 See §2.2.2, after note 59.
15 See the discussion of Descartes’s exchange with Hobbes in §4.1.1, after note 10.
 Epilogue 271

the implication of Bayle’s maxim that we cannot properly use a term to sig-
nify what an accident does or suffers. For surely Descartes’s own claim that
a motion can be modified by a particular determination properly applies to
that motion, as the subject of the determination. Even so, it seems that this
claim applies to the substance as well, insofar as the determination that mod-
ifies the motion of a particular substantial part of matter ultimately modifies
that part as well. So perhaps we do not yet have in Descartes a way out of the
problem of predicability that Bayle raises for Spinoza.
Which takes us to Spinoza himself. We have seen that though Spinoza
accepts the result in Descartes that modes can be subjects of other modes, he
deviates from Descartes in holding that only modes, and not substance, can
have a durational existence.16 Thus, only modes, and not substance, can be
durational subjects of modes. Similarly, only modes, and not substance, can
be composed of parts. Thus, only modes, and not substance, can be divisible
subjects of modes. Insofar as the terms we apply to subjects require dura-
tional existence or mereological complexity, they cannot apply “physically
and properly” to substance.
Of course, Spinoza’s monism requires that all modes are merely “affections”
that exist in the one substance and must be conceived through that substance
(as modifications or affections of it).17 Yet as Spinoza makes clear in the
Ethics, it is only when we consider matter as affected that we can consider it
to be composed of parts that are modally distinct. In contrast, when matter is
considered as “everywhere the same,” and thus as substance, it must be con-
sidered as “infinite, unique and indivisible” (E Ip15s, G II.59). Here we have
two subjects, namely, matter as affected and matter as substance, and what is
said of the former cannot automatically be said of the latter.
The issue of modes is crucial for Bayle’s charge in the Dictionaire that
Spinoza’s God must be mutable insofar as extended substance is the subject
of changing modes. But this is only one of two issues that I have highlighted
with respect to Bayle’s consideration of Spinoza’s metaphysics of the mate-
rial world. The other issue is broached by the objection in the Dictionaire
that Spinoza’s God must be composite insofar as extended substance is it-
self composed of distinct substantial parts. Indeed, this second issue is in a
sense more primary for Bayle himself, as indicated by the fact that he takes
the problem of the incompatible properties of God to reduce to the problem

16 See §6.2.1, after note 54, and Figure 6.1.

17 On the need for the addition of the parenthetical, see the discussion in §6.2.1 of the complications
for Spinoza that derive from the case of externally caused affections of the human body.
272 Epilogue

of the composite nature of divine substance. Thus, prior to raising the ob-
jection concerning the incompatible thoughts of the Spinozistic God, Bayle
emphasizes that it must be the case “that the substance modified by a square
shape is not the same as the substance modified by a round one.” The result
is that “extension is composed of as many distinct substances as there are
modifications” (IV.260a). But then the real problem here is the composite
nature of God as extended substance, which derives from the fact that partic-
ular things are parts that compose him.18
In following up on this second issue, I have started not from Suárez’s new
notion of mode but rather from his conception of accidental quantity and
the integral parts that compose it. The choice of this starting point was deter-
mined by Descartes’s indication in Meditation V that he borrowed his under-
standing of body from what “the philosophers called” continuous quantity
(AT V.63). Of course, Descartes deviated from Suárez and other scholastic
“quantity realists” in holding that continuous quantity is not an accident, but
rather constitutes the nature of material substance itself.19 However, a con-
sideration of Suárez’s account of continuous quantity raises the question of
whether it can be a res that exhibits a sort of per se unity. Despite the fact that
Suárez was an “actualist” who held that continuous quantity is composed of
parts that are themselves really distinct res, he nonetheless suggested that
these parts are only incomplete res that compose a quantitative whole that
is itself a single complete res.20 Yet this position is not open to Descartes,
given his view that the parts that compose continuous quantity are com-
plete substances in their own right.21 This leaves us with the implication that
Descartes’s quantity is a mere aggregate, akin to a woodpile.22
Bayle picked up on this implication. In the first chapter, I cited his claim,
from the article on Zeno of Elea in the Dictionaire, that

18 Bayle indicates that there would be no difficulty here “had Spinoza presented God as an assem-

blage of parts” (IV.261b).

19 Descartes’s denial that quantity is a real accident is, of course, anticipated in nominalist criticisms

of quantity realism within scholasticism, as documented in §3.1.1. But to reinforce a point at the be-
ginning of c­ hapter 3, at note 3, even scholastic nominalists such as Ockham insisted that a complete
account of the nature of material substance requires an appeal to substantial form as well as to quan-
tified matter, and thus could not have accepted Descartes’s claim that a material object is nothing over
and above quantity and its modifications.
20 See §3.2.2, after note 63.
21 See §4.2.2, after note 59.
22 Though without the requirement of spatial proximity, which applies to the woodpile; cf. §3.2.2,

after note 61; §5.2.1, after note 44; and Figure 5.1.
 Epilogue 273

if God were extended, he would but an assemblage of beings, ens per

agregationem, each of which would be finite, even though all of them to-
gether would be unlimited. He would be like the material world, which, in
the Cartesian theory, has an infinite extension. (DHC, “Zenon d’Élée,” rem.
I, IV.544b)23

We can draw a comparison here to Leibniz’s claim that Cartesian exten-

sion lacks a true unity. For instance, in 1687 correspondence with Arnauld,
Leibniz states that

each extended mass [mass étendue] can be considered as composed of two

or a thousand others . . . Thus one will never find a body of which one can
say that it is truly a substance. It will always be an aggregate of many. Or
rather, it will not be a real entity, since the parts making it up are subject
to the same difficulty, and since one never arrives at a real entity, because
entities made up by aggregation have only as much reality as exists in their
constituent parts. (Leibniz 1875–​90: II.118)

Leibniz takes the fact that Cartesian extension lacks true unity to show that
it cannot be substantial. However, for Bayle the lesson is that Cartesian ex-
tended substance is not simple, and so cannot be identified with God’s simple
being. In this respect Bayle is closer to the position in Arnauld that prompted
Leibniz’s response in the passage just cited. In particular, Arnauld defended
the Cartesian view of divisible matter by noting that it

is perhaps essential for matter, which is the most imperfect of entities, to

have no true and proper unity, and to be always many entities [pluria entia],
and not properly one entity [unum ens]; and that this is no more incompre-
hensible than the infinite divisibility of matter, which you allow. (Leibniz
1875–​90: II.106)

And so, it seems, it is for Bayle: extended substance is by nature divis-

ible without end, and thus is a merely an ens per agregationem, and not an
unum ens.
Bayle assumes that since “Spinoza had been a great Cartesian” (DHC,
“Spinoza,” rem. DD, IV.269a), he is forced to concede in the end that extended

23 See the initial discussion of this passage in §1.1.2, before note 12.
274 Epilogue

substance is nothing more than an ens per agregationem. However, our pre-
vious investigation reveals that Spinoza himself has a quite radical way of
avoiding this result. As an alternative to the view in Descartes that quanti-
tative parts are complete substantial beings, Spinoza offers the position that
they are dynamic affections of God’s power as manifested in the material
world. Thus, for Spinoza, material parts are not substantial but modal, with
finite modal parts composing the infinite modes of the attribute of exten-
sion. The infinite modes derive in turn from the absolute nature of this at-
tribute, which expresses an essence or power that is infinite by its very nature,
and so not subject to division. As in the case of his conception of modes,
so Spinoza’s conception of quantity has points of contact with the views of
Descartes, and ultimately with those of Suárez. Nonetheless, the substantial
quantity that Spinoza posits is at some remove not only from the collection
of substantial quantitative parts that plays the role of extended substance in
a Cartesian material world, but also from the composite though unified con-
tinuous quantity that functions as a fundamental accident in Suárez’s version
of the Aristotelian material world.
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 Index

For the benefit of digital users, indexed terms that span two pages (e.g., 52–​53) may, on
occasion, appear on only one of those pages.
Note: Tables and figures are indicated by t and f following the page number

accident Bayle, Pierre, 1–​13, 192–​93,

Aristotle on, 14–​17, 142–​43, 267–​69 263–​65, 267–​74
real, 10–​11, 33, 35–​36, 60–​63, 113–​14, Spinoza article in
134–​35, 258, 268 first edition of, 4–​9
Suárez on, 33–​36, 37, 60–​63 second edition of, 9–​13
See also mode: accident vs. See also God: identification of material
Ackrill, J. L., 15–​17 substance with: Bayle’s arguments
Adam Wodeham, 92–​93 against; mode: Bayle on; part:
Alquié, Ferdinand, 178n70 Bayle on
analogy, see metaphysics: analogical Bennett, Jonathan, 125, 248n50
Anfray, Jean-​Pascal, 79n42 Beyssade, Jean-​Marie, 210n66
Aquinas, see Thomas Aquinas body
Aristotle, 13–​23, 28–​29, 29n4, 33–​34, Descartes on
47–​48, 49, 64–​65, 81, 82–​83, bodies-​taken-​in-​general and,
84, 90–​91, 97, 142–​43, 191, 146–​56, 156t
198–​99, 267–​68 human, 171–​75
Categories of, 14–​16, 29n4, 33–​34, incorruptibility of, 146–​47,
60–​62, 64–​65, 81, 198–​99 156–​65, 167–​69
Metaphysics Zeta of, 17–​23, 29n4, ordinary, 175–​81, 245
34n26, 82–​83, 84 Spinoza on
See also accident: Aristotle on; categories, individual, 236–​53
Aristotelian; indivisibles: Infinite Individual and,
Aristotle on; inherence: Aristotle 243–​53, 252t
on; metaphysics: Aristotelian simplest, 221–​23, 243–​44
definition of See also extension; impenetrability;
Arnauld, Antoine, 110, 132, 168–​69, quantity; substance: material,
190–​91, 273 divisibility of
attribute boundaries; see indivisibles
Descartes on Brower, Jeffrey, 48–​49, 67–​68
mode vs., 111–​12 Brykman, Geneviève, 9–​10
principal, 109, 111–​12, 114, 161–​63
Spinoza on Cajetan, see Thommaso de Vio
objective vs. subjective interpretation Carraud, Vincent, 189–​90n12
of, 195–​98 Carriero, John, 249n52, 267–​69
substance and, 192, 194–​99 categories, Aristotelian, 60–​62,
Averroes, 77 64–​65, 134–​35
288 Index

Caterus, Johannes, 109–​10, 111–​12, Eucharist, doctrine of, 10–​11, 58–​59, 66–​
119–​20, 190–​91 68, 71–​72, 73, 76, 107–​8, 129, 132–​
Chisholm, Roderick, 97–​98, 163n44 34, 137, 138, 140–​43, 179–​80
Coimbra commentators, 105 Eustachius a Sancto Paulo, 103–​4
Collacciani, Domenico, 150n13 extension
Copernicanism, Descartes’s view Descartes on, 121–​27, 130–​32, 213–​14
of, 140–​43 Spinoza on, 212–​17, 216f, 252t
Courtine, Jean-​François, 29–​31, 32 Suárez on, 73–​76, 130, 131
Curley, Edwin, 3n5, 202–​3, 267–​68 See also body; impenetrability;
quantity; substance: material,
Della Rocca, Michael, 199–​202, divisibility of
260–​61n73
Descartes, René, 11–​12, 103–​81, 185–​ Fonseca, see Pedro da Fonseca
86, 187–​88, 190–​92, 205–​9, Francisco de Oviedo, 57–​58
213–​14, 218–​21, 222–​23, 271,
272, 273–​74 Gabbey, Alan, 245n37
see also attribute: Descartes on; body, Garber, Daniel, 153n18, 248–​49
Descartes on; Copernicanism, Garrett, Don, 201–​2, 217n85,
Descartes’s view of; distinction: 221, 248n50
Descartes on; mode: Descartes God
on; extension: Descartes on; a se existence of, 32–​34, 37, 189–​90,
impenetrability: Descartes 191, 192
on; inherence: Descartes on; causa sui and, 186, 189–​91
mereology: Descartes on; mode, dependence of creatures on, 29–​30,
Descartes on; part: Descartes on; 32–​33, 58–​59, 99, 117, 156,
quantity: Descartes on; substance: 160–​61, 187–​88, 191–​92
Descartes on; surface: Descartes identification of material
on; wax passage: Descartes’s substance with
distinction Bayle’s arguments against, 1,
Descartes on, 105–​21, 166–​67 2–​9, 12–​13, 144, 188, 192–​93,
formal, 41–​43 263–​64, 269–​73
modal, 41–​47, 119–​21 (see also modes) Spinoza’s arguments for, 187–​88, 193,
potential, 85–​86, 127 263, 264–​65, 271, 273–​74
real, 35–​40, 114–​18, 139–​40, 166–​67, Gregory of Rimini, 54
195, 196 Grey, John, 242n27, 249–​50n54
of reason, 35–​36, 109–​11, 119–​21, 196, Gueroult, Martial, 147–​50, 150n12, 154,
227–​28, 239–​40 196–​98, 210–​12, 221n96, 245n37
Spinoza on, 166–​67, 196, 227–​28 Guigon, Ghislain, 237n17, 238–​41,
Suárez on, 35–​47, 45t, 111–​13, 114–​15, 242–​43, 246–​47, 253–​54
118–​19, 167
Domingo de Soto, 41, 84, 89, 91–​92 Heidegger, Martin, 30n7
Donagan, Alan, 197 Henry of Harclay, 91–​92
Douglas, Alexander, 269–​70 Hobbes, Thomas, 106–​8
Doz, André, 197 Hoffman, Paul, 112n22, 115n31,
Duns Scotus, John, 29, 30n7, 32, 36n30, 116–​17n35, 137n84
41–​42, 46–​47, 49–​50, 51n77, 53, Huenemann, Charlie, 264n79
60n97, 72n22, 72n23, 92n70, Hume, David, 46–​47
109, 111–​12 Hurtado de Mendoza, Pedro, 55–​56
 Index 289

impenetrability mode
Descartes on, 121–​32 accident vs., 10–​11, 16–​17,
Suárez on, 72–​80, 127–​32 60–​63, 108, 135–​36, 142–​43, 208,
See also body; extension; quantity; 208f (see also accident)
substance: material, divisibility of Bayle on, 8–​13, 27, 46–​47, 188, 199,
indivisibles 202, 270–​71
Aristotle on, 90–​91 causality of, 134f, 134–​35, 207–​8
nominalist view of, 92–​94 Descartes on, 105–​11, 114, 132–​43,
realist view of, 91–​92, 94–​100 135t, 147–​48, 208f (see also
Suárez on, 94–​100 attribute: Descartes on, mode vs.)
See also surface: Descartes on mode of, 43, 107–​8, 206
inherence res and, 43, 46, 94–​95, 96, 108, 112–​13,
Aristotle on, 15–​17, 22–​23, 198–​99 223 (see also res)
Descartes on, 107–​8, 111–​12, 134–​36, 229 Spinoza on, 199–​212
Spinoza on, 4–​5, 199–​206, 229, 245 infinite, 208f, 208–​12,
Suárez on, 37, 42–​44, 60–​63, 77–​78, 215–​17, 247–​53
81–​82, 108, 130, 134–​36, 245 motion-​and-​rest as, 217–​24,
243–​45, 248–​49
Johannes of Naples, 86 straddling, 56–​57, 95–​96, 137
John Buridan, 92–​93 Suárez on, 41–​63, 95–​100, 134–​36, 135t,
205–​9, 208f
Kaufman, Dan, 156n25, 161n40 accidental, 60–​63
substantial, 53–​59
Laporte, Jean, 148–​49, 176 See also distinction: modal; part:
Leibniz, Wilhelm Gottfried, 273 mode and; part: modal; surface,
Lennon, Thomas, 140n90 Descartes on: modal realism and
More, Henry, 116–​17, 123–​28, 129–​30,
Marion, Jean-​Luc, 30–​31, 32, 103, 191n16 154–​55, 213, 219
Matheron, Alexandre, 212n73, Mori, Gianluca, 6–​7
221n96, 245n37
Melamed, Yitzhak, 177n69 Nadler, Steven, 187–​88, 236n15
Menn, Stephen, 27n2, 96n84 Nelson, Alan, 155n23, 159–​60, 169
mereology nominalism, 54, 60–​62, 69–​72, 76, 92–​94,
Boethius on, 80–​82 106–​7, 133, 272n19
bottom-​up vs. top-​down in, 83–​84, See also indivisibles: nominalist view of;
169, 223 quantity: nominalist view of
Descartes on, 169–​71 Normore, Calvin, 180n73
medieval, 80–​85
mereological essentialism in, 163, Ockham, see William Ockham
164–​65, 169–​70 Oldenburg, Henry, 220, 236–​37, 238–​39
Spinoza on, 237–​61 Owen, G. E. L., 15–​17, 268
Suárez on, 39–​40, 85–​89, 169–​70
See also part part
Mesland, Denis, 138, 148 actualist vs. possibilist view of, 65,
metaphysics 82–​83, 272
analogical, 28–​34, 58, 60–​61, 88, 103, Bayle on, 5–​8, 64, 144, 212, 224, 271–​74
117–​18, 170, 177–​78, 268 Descartes on, 124–​26, 127–​28,
Aristotelian definition of, 28–​29 154–​55, 164f
290 Index

part (cont.) Schechtman, Anat, 157–​58, 174–​75

essential vs. integral, 47–​48 Schmid, Stephan, 143n93
heterogeneous vs. homogeneous, 85–​89, Scotus, see Duns Scotus, John
127, 242, 272 Skirry, Justin, 112n22
modal, 226–​30, 240–​43, 252t, 261–​62 Smith, A. D., 197–​98
mode and, 12–​13, 133–​34, 149, 259–​61 Smith, Kurt, 155n23, 159–​60, 169
Spinoza on, 227–​32, 252t, 253–​61 Soto, see Domingo de Soto
Suárez on, 39–​40, 45, 77–​79, 77f, Spinoza, Benedict de, 2–​13, 165–​67, 169–​70,
85–​89, 131 185–​265, 267–​74
See also mereology power ontology in, 186–​87,
Pasnau, Robert, 27, 40n45, 48–​49, 215, 264–​65
67n7, 125–​26, 129n62, 129–​30, See also attribute: Spinoza on; Bayle,
173n62, 181n74 Pierre: Spinoza article in; body:
Pedro da Fonseca, 41–​44, 46–​47, 85–​86, Spinoza on; distinction: Spinoza
105–​7, 108, 175n65 on; extension: Spinoza on; God:
Peterman, Alison, 212n73, 213n75, identification of material substance
221n99, 232–​36, 251, 257n67 with, Spinoza’s argument for;
prime matter, 19–​21, 47–​50, 51–​52, 67–​69, inherence: Spinoza on; mereology:
72–​73, 77–​79, 188, 264n79 Spinoza on; mode: Spinoza on;
part: Spinoza on; quantity: Spinoza
quantity on; substance: Spinoza on
causality of, 79–​80, 128–​30 Stuart, Matthew, 178–​79
Descartes on, 121–​32 Suárez, Francisco, 27–​100, 167, 169–​70,
dimensive, 66–​69, 72–​73 189–​90, 196, 206–​9, 223, 228–​29,
nominalist view of, 69, 72, 76–​79 242, 258, 260, 270–​71, 272
realist view of, 9–​10, 66–​69, 72–​79 See also accident: Suárez on; distinction:
Spinoza on, 232–​37 Suárez on; mode: Suárez on;
Suárez on, 72–​80, 127–​32 extension: Suárez on; impenetrability:
See also body; extension; Suárez on; indivisibles: Suárez on;
impenetrability; substance: inherence: Suárez on; mereology:
material, divisibility of Suárez on; mode, Suárez on; part:
Suárez on; quantity: Suárez on;
realism substance: Suárez on
modal, 132–​36 substance
moderate, 91, 93, 94–​100 Aristotle on, 14–​23, 198–​99
radical, 91–​92 complete vs. incomplete, 50, 51–​52,
See also indivisibles: realist view of; 57–​58, 127–​28, 155n23, 272–​73
quantity: realist view of; surface, Descartes on, 167–​71
Descartes on: modal realism and indivisibility of, 165–​66, 167, 225,
res, 34, 35–​36, 53, 58, 113 229–​32, 235–​36, 270–​71, 273–​74
See also mode: res and material, divisibility of, 4–​7, 123–​25,
Rodrigo de Arriaga, 56, 57–​58 128, 149, 160, 225, 271–​73
Rozemond, Marleen, 36n32, 108n17, monist vs. pluralist view of,
115–​16, 164n47, 167n53 144–​45, 147–​50
Rubius, Antoinus, 105 per se existence of, 10, 33–​34, 37,
115–​16, 175, 189
Sacksteder, William, 238n18, 253n56 Spinoza on, 187–​99, 230–​32, 252t
Schaffer, Jonathan, 225–​26, 227, 237, (see also attribute: Spinoza on,
252, 261–​63 substance and)
 Index 291

Suárez on, 33–​34, 47–​52 (see also mode: Thommaso de Vio, 30–​31, 31n13, 92–​93
Suárez on: substantial) Toletus, Franciscus, 105
See also God: identification of material Toner, Patrick, 171
substance with
substantial form, 17, 21–​23, 47–​48, 49–​52, unity, per se vs. per accidens, 62–​63,
58–​59, 63n104, 72–​73, 78 89, 272–​74
unitarian vs. pluralist view of, 50–​51, 78
surface, Descartes on vacuum, 140n89, 164–​70, 224
modal realism and, 132–​36, 134f, 149 Van Cleve, James, 163n44, 164n46
persistence of, 137–​43
See also indivisibles Walter Chatton, 91–​92
wax passage, Descartes’s, 150–​53
Thomas Aquinas, 28–​29, 30–​31, 47–​51, 66–​ William Ockham, 51n77, 54, 60–​61, 64n2,
70, 71, 72–​73, 75, 76n36, 77, 78–​79, 69–​75, 76–​77, 78–​79, 82–​83, 91,
83–​84, 89, 107–​8, 175n65, 268 92–​93, 130, 181n74, 272n18