Two Notes on Spinoza’s Experimentalist Mind, According to Peirce: Ontological Parallelism and Continuity

Abstract

Spinoza is found among the metaphysicians Peirce admired the most. Peirce’s compliment to him is due to the fact that his metaphysics would stand for an “experimentalist mind”. The present paper aims at, exactly, pointing out some elements from Spinozan philosophy which, hypothetically, might perform the experimentalist character greeted by Peirce. Such main purpose will be fulfilled through two notes, which might not only demonstrate Spinoza’s experimentalist problems, but trace as well their echoes in certain important passages at Peirce’s “Scientific Metaphysics”. In fact, Spinoza dedicated himself, steadily, to the construction of the so called ontological parallelism between bodies and ideas. Being this parallelism one of the main thesis supported through Spinoza’s Ethics, it establishes, decisively, a Pragmatist link between the knowledge (ideas) and the world of the action (bodies). As for Peirce, also, new relations between bodies and ideas unchain beliefs that shall be established, drawing a new habit, which has the strength to make a shift in the conduct of life. In this case, these relations are based on the Peircean thesis of continuity. The same agreement is to be found either from the point of view of ideas or in the epistemological domain. As Spinoza indicated, the rise of a new relation between bodies compels us to knowledge, since new relations require new ideas. As for Peirce, we have the feeling of satisfaction whenever we are impelled from doubt to belief, so that new mental habits are also the epistemological guarantee that something new comes up. In short, for Spinoza as much for Peirce, it would apply certain resonance between the ethical joy and the satisfaction that follows knowledge.