Spinoza’s Re-Evaluation of Humility

2.1 Humility in the Short Treatise

Let us begin with Spinoza’s account of humility in the Short Treatise. Here, Spinoza distinguishes between humility (Nedrigheid), which is a virtue, and culpable humility (strafbare Nedrigheid), which is not.^[12] Humility “exists when a man knows (kend) his imperfection (syne onvolmaaktheid)” (KV II 8, G I/69/5–6). Culpable humility “exists when someone attributes to himself an imperfection that does not belong to him (eenige onvolmaaktheid die aan niet behoort)” (KV II 8, G I/69/8–9). In other words, the virtuously humble person is someone who accurately estimates their imperfection, while the culpably humble person is someone who overestimates their imperfection.

As its name suggests, culpable humility is not a virtue. Arising from an “error” (KV II 8, G I/69/27) concerning our capacities, culpable humility “prevents us from doing what we should otherwise have to do to become perfect.” Humility, on the other hand, is a virtue. Not just that. Together with legitimate self-esteem (edelmoedigheid), which exists when someone “knows his perfection according to its true worth” (KV II 8, G I/69/2–3), it is “the chief means” for attaining perfection:

As far as Self-esteem and Humility are concerned, through themselves they show their excellence. For we say that he who has these knows his perfection or imperfection according to its worth. And this […] is the chief means of attaining our perfection (het voornaamste is [...] waar door wy tot onse volmaaktheid geraaken). For if we know (kennende) our power and perfection (onse magt en volmaaktheid) accurately, we thereby see clearly what we must do to attain our good end. And again, if we know (kennen) our defect and lack of power (ons gebrek en onmagt), we see what we must avoid. (KV II 8, G 1/69/17–25)

In other words, because legitimate self-esteem and humility involve knowledge of our perfection and of our imperfection, respectively, and because knowledge of our perfection and of our imperfection respectively tell us what we should do and what we should not do to attain our highest perfection, self-esteem and humility are the principal means for attaining that state. As Spinoza also puts it, humility and self-esteem “not only put their possessor in a very good state, but they are also the true stairway (regte trap) on which we climb to our highest salvation” (KV II 8, G/1/33–35).

Humility coupled with self-esteem “show[s its] excellence” through itself; is a “chief means” and “true stairway” towards salvation. Together, they also “put their possessor in a very good state.”^[13] In the Short Treatise, humility is indeed a virtue.

2.2 Humility in the Ethics

Spinoza’s treatment of humility differs considerably in the Ethics. To begin, he offers a more fine-grained analysis of the network of affects that are related to humility. In the Short Treatise, this network is a neat quartet consisting of humility (knowledge of one’s own imperfection), culpable humility (an erroneous self-attribution of imperfection), self-esteem (knowledge of one’s own perfection; KV II 8, G I/69/1-4), and pride (an erroneous self-attribution of perfection; KV II 8, G I/69/8-9). In the Ethics, it is a more intricate cluster. Spinoza now differentiates humility (a sadness arising from an apprehension of one’s own lack of power; 3def26/3p55s) from despondency (thinking less highly of oneself than is just, an effect of humility; 3def28exp, 3def29) and repentance (thinking that one has done something morally blameworthy out of free will; 3def27).^[14] Furthermore, he now opposes humility to self-esteem (a joy arising from an apprehension of one’s own power; 3def25, 3def26exp), whereas he initially presented them as complementary in that they join together to bring us to our summum bonum.^[15] Finally, and perhaps most strikingly, Spinoza now claims that humility is not a virtue. And as we will see in § 3.1, that shift is not merely verbal.

Spinoza argues that humility is not a virtue because he thinks that it presupposes a mistaken view about human nature. On Spinoza’s view, human beings and finite things generally are modes of God. We are certain and determinate states of God’s essence (1d5), particular ways in which God’s being is expressed (1p25c). Since God’s essence just is his power (1p34), finite things are particular expressions of God’s power (1p36). As Spinoza puts it, we are “things that express, in a certain and determinate way, God’s power, by which God is and acts” (3p6d). We are finite chunks, as it were, of the absolutely infinite power constitutive of God.^[16]

Just as God’s absolutely infinite power is nothing but God’s essence, so Spinoza argues that that finite degree of God’s power which we express is nothing but our essence:

[T]he power of each thing, or (sive) the striving (rei potentia sive conatus) by which it (either alone or with others) does (agit) anything, or strives to do anything—that is (by 3p6), the power, or striving, by which it strives to persevere in its being, is nothing but (nihil est praeter) the given, or (sive) actual, essence of the thing itself. (3p7d)^[17]

Building on Spinoza’s conatus doctrine, which says that all things strive to persevere in their being (3p6), this passage identifies our conatus with the power by which we act. It then identifies this power with our essence. The essence of human beings and finite things generally, Spinoza thinks, simply consists in a particular quantum of God’s power.^[18]

Spinoza’s rejection of humility’s virtue fundamentally turns on his mature conception of our essence as nothing but our power. To understand how his argument works more precisely, let us introduce some terminology. Let a feature F be intrinsic to a thing (res) x just in case x’s nature suffices to explain why x is F. An intrinsic feature is thus a feature whose metaphysical source is the essence, or equivalently, nature, of the bearer of that feature.^[19] For example, because it follows from the nature of a triangle that its interior angles sum up to 180 °, having interior angles that sum up to 180 ° is an intrinsic feature of triangles. Similarly, because our essence simply consists in power, it is the metaphysical source of our power, so that power is an intrinsic feature of human beings (and indeed, of all things).

Spinoza’s identification of our essence with power entails that lack of power is not an intrinsic feature of human beings. Because our essence simply consists in power, that is to say, it is not the case that we are intrinsically weak.^[20] To see this, note that Spinoza denies that things that are of a contrary nature can exist in the same subject at once (3p5). Since power and lack of power are opposites, the fact that our nature consists in power entails that it cannot also consist in some lack of power. Nor can lack of power follow from our nature. For it is just as unintelligible for something entirely consisting in thought (such as a mind) to give rise to something not at all consisting in thought (such as a bodily state; cf. 1p3, 2p6, 3p2.) as it is for something entirely consisting in power to give rise to a lack of power. Since nothing is metaphysically possible unless it is intelligible for Spinoza (cf. 1p11d1), our essence can neither consist in nor give rise to weakness.

There is a restricted sense in which our essence can explain weakness. Although we do not lack any power as far as our own nature is concerned, we do lack power in relation to other things, things with comparatively more power.^[21] Though all modes are or express God’s power to some degree, not all modes are or express God’s power to the same degree. Since God produces all conceivable things “from the highest degree of perfection to the lowest” (1app II/83/29–30), and since power and perfection are equivalent for Spinoza (see my n5 above), God produces all modes of every conceivable degree of power. And among modes, there is not a highest degree. Spinoza takes it to be axiomatic that however powerful any one of us may be, there will always be something out there which is stronger: “There is no other singular thing in Nature than which there is not another more powerful and stronger” (4a1).^[22] So, in sum, the essence of each thing “affirms only what the [thing] is and can do, not what it is not and cannot do” (3p54d, cf. 3p4d and 3p55d). “So while we attend only to the thing itself and not to external causes, we shall not be able to find anything in it which [is contrary or opposite to it]” (3p4, cf. 3p5). But when we do adequately attend to external causes, we will find that we lack power relative to other things.

Here looms a big problem, one of the biggest problems, perhaps, in Spinoza scholarship. Because our nature simply consists in power, it cannot also consist in, or by itself bring about, any lack of power. Considered in ourselves, then, we do not lack any power. As Chantal Jaquet puts it, “there is no powerlessness in itself, since each thing is as perfect as it can be” (Jaquet 2018, 125). But although we do not lack any power as far as our nature is concerned, it is not the case that we therefore have infinite power. While each of us simply consists in God’s power, Spinoza argues that each of us more precisely consists in a “certain and determinate” quantum of God’s power (1p25c, 1p36; italics added). This also explains why we can lack power relative to other things.^[23] For although each of us consists in a certain and determinate quantum of God’s power, it does not follow from this that we must all consist in exactly the same quantum of God’s power. On the contrary, Spinoza maintains that God produces modes at infinitely many different levels of perfection, which is to say, power.

To maintain our finitude and plurality, then, it is crucial for Spinoza that modes are or express God’s power to different certain and determinate degrees. But there can only be certain and determinate degrees of power, and there can only be different such degrees, if there can be limitations on our power in the first place. The problem is that it is hard to see where any such limitation could come from. At first glance, it seems that it can arise from modes. Modes are by definition dependent beings (1d5). Insofar as dependence is a limitation, it thus seems that modes are essentially limited. But this doctrine is hard to square with Spinoza’s insistence that essences only affirm what the thing is and can do, not what it is not or cannot do (3p54d, 3p55d). The essence of each thing, that is to say, seems to exclude precisely the ways in which that thing is limited. Furthermore, Spinoza’s commitment to intelligibility seems to entail that modes cannot give rise to a lack of power given that they fundamentally consist in nothing but power. But this line of reasoning applies to God as much as it does to modes. For God’s essence simply consists in power too, albeit absolutely infinite power. It thus seems that, by Spinoza’s own lights, there cannot be any limitations on power.

The difficulty of explaining how power can be limited is an instance of the general and perennial problem of explaining how there can be any limitations or negations at all given Spinoza’s principles.^[24] As we will see in § 3.3, there is a long tradition of scholars who argue that there cannot be, so that Spinoza is committed to acosmism, the view that finite things do not exist. While my emphasis on the identity of power and essence brings the problem of acosmism to our attention, it is not a problem that is unique to my reading. I therefore will not attempt to resolve it. However, in § 3.3, I will argue that attention to Spinoza’s evolving stance on humility and power helps us to understand the debate over acosmism in a new way.

Before we turn to Spinoza’s account of humility in the Ethics, let me address a further concern about my view that lack of power is a merely relational feature for Spinoza. In 4p17s, Spinoza argues that to determine the extent to which we can take rational control over our affects, we must learn not only about our nature’s power but also about its lack of power:

[I]t is necessary to come to know (noscere) both our nature’s power and its lack of power (nostrae naturae tam potentiam quam impotentiam), so that we can determine what reason can do in moderating the affects (in moderandis affectibus), and what it cannot do. (4p17s)

If we read this passage at face value, it seems to say that both power and weakness are intrinsic features of human beings because it attributes not just power but also lack of power specifically to our nature (nostra natura).

But I do not think that we should read 4p17s at face value. We need to read it in light of the Preface to Part 4. For Spinoza refers us back to 4pref when he writes, in the opening lines of 4p17s, that he has now accomplished what he set out to do in Part 4, namely explaining why we often act against our better judgment:

With this I believe that I have shown why men are moved more by opinion than by true reason, and why the true knowledge of good and evil […] often yields to lust of every kind. Hence that verse of the Poet: “I see and approve of the better, but follow the worse” (video meliora, proboque, deteriora sequor).

Where does Spinoza announce his goal of explaining weakness of will? In the opening lines of 4pref, where he also uses the same quote from Ovid (Metamorphoses VII, 20–21):

The human lack of power to moderate (Humanam impotentiam in moderandis) and restrain the affects I call bondage. For the man who is subject to affects is under the control, not of himself, but of fortune, in whose power he so greatly is that often, though he sees the better for himself, he is still forced to follow the worse (quanquam meliora sibi videat, deteriora tamen sequi). In this part (In hac parte), I have undertaken to demonstrate the cause of this (rei causam) (4pref G II/205/8–13).

That Spinoza declares in 4p17s that he has now accomplished the goal he introduced in 4pref, and that he uses the same example as he does in 4pref, shows that 4p17s refers the reader back to 4pref. We should therefore read 4p17s in light of 4pref.

4pref turns out to be highly relevant for understanding Spinoza’s notion of our lack of power. For it presents his metaphysics of imperfection and moral properties generally, and lack of power is a paradigmatic imperfection. With one important exception, one of Spinoza’s main and famous contentions in this preface is that perfection and imperfection are mind-dependent relational features of things.^[25] “Perfection and imperfection,” he writes, “are really only modes of thinking (revera modi solummodo cogitandi), that is, notions we are accustomed to feign (fingere) because we compare individuals of the same species or genus to one another” (G I/207/18–21). The exception is that perfection in the sense of reality or being (realitas or esse) “pertains absolutely to all individuals in Nature” (4pref, G I/207/25), in which sense it is intrinsic. Imperfection, in contrast, is only relational. It is thus ontologically on a par with goodness and badness in that they “also indicate nothing positive in things, considered in themselves (nihil etiam positivum in rebus in se scilicet consideratis), [but are simply] notions we form because we compare things to one another” (4pref, G II/208/8–11).

Spinoza’s account of imperfection as a merely relational feature entails that lack of power is a merely relational feature as well. For lack of power is an imperfection (4pref G II/207/29-II/208/3), and indeed, it is equivalent to imperfection (see n5 above). Since what Spinoza says in 4pref should inform our interpretation of 4p17s, we have reason to doubt that “our nature’s lack of power” in 4p17s designates our lack of power as an intrinsic feature, even if it suggests as much at first glance. Once we bring 4pref to bear on 4p17s, where Spinoza spells out his position more fully, we find that his position is that our lack of power is a merely relational feature after all.^[26]

With Spinoza’s conception of our essence and of our relative lack of power on the table, let us turn to his account of humility in the Ethics. Where the traditional religious accounts of human nature go wrong, Spinoza thinks, is in construing human beings as intrinsically rather than merely relatively weak. This brings us to Spinoza’s definition of humility:

Humility is a sadness born of the fact that man considers his own lack of power, or weakness (Humilitas est tristia orta ex eo quod homo suam impotentiam sive imbecillitatem contemplatur). (3def26)

Humility is a sadness, a decrease in one’s power of acting, arising from an apprehension of one’s own (suam) lack of power.^[27] This means that the humble person apprehends herself as intrinsically weak, as lacking power as a matter of her nature, rather than as merely relatively weak, weaker than someone else.^[28] But as we have just seen, it is not the case that we are intrinsically weak. The upshot is that humility essentially arises from a false apprehension of one’s essence. Accordingly, Spinoza also explains humility in terms of the imagination, whose ideas are always false (2p17s, 2p40s2, 2p41). Humility, he writes in Proposition 55 of Part 3, arises when “the mind, in considering itself, imagines (imaginatur) its lack of power” (3p55d, 3p55s). As Sanem Soyarslan puts it, “humility indicates a lack of self-understanding, for it involves the error of thinking that we lack power intrinsically due to our essence” (Soyarslan 2018, 344).^[29]

Virtue, on the other hand, is coextensive with understanding (intelligere). Spinoza defines virtue (virtus) as the power (potentia) to act through one’s nature alone, independently of external influence (4d8). This power is coextensive with understanding (intelligere).^[30] We act virtuously, that is to say, just when our actions are based on understanding. As Spinoza puts it, “no one acts from virtue insofar as he is determined to do something because he has inadequate [i. e., false] ideas, but only insofar as he is determined because he understands (intelligit)” (4p23, cf. 4p24d). As this passage highlights, understanding cannot be false. We only understand something if we have a true idea of that thing. (Indeed, Spinoza thinks that what it is to have a true idea of something just is to understand that thing (2p43s).) Since virtue is coextensive with understanding and understanding cannot be false, no affect that arises from a false apprehension is a virtue.

The relationship between virtue and understanding, on the one hand, together with Spinoza’s conception of our essence as power, on the other, entails that humility is not a virtue.^[31]

Humility is a Sadness which arises from the fact that a man considers his own lack of power (suam impotentiam). Moreover, insofar as a man knows himself by true reason (vera ratione), it is supposed that he understands his own essence (suam essentiam intelligere), that is (by 3p7), his own power. So (Quare) if a man, in considering himself, perceives some lack of power of his, this is not because he understands himself […]. So humility […] does not arise from a true reflection, or reason (non ex vera contemplatione seu ratione oritur), and is […] not a virtue, q.e.d. (4p53)

The basic argument is this: Humility arises from an apprehension of oneself as intrinsically weak. But insofar as we truly apprehend ourselves, we apprehend our essence, and our essence is nothing but our power. Humility thus arises from a false apprehension. But an affect is a virtue only if it arises from a true apprehension, namely from understanding, or, equivalently, from reason (cf. 3p3, 5p4s). Therefore, humility is not a virtue.

To be sure, in denying that humility is a virtue, Spinoza is not licensing pride.^[32] Pride (superbia) is thinking of oneself more highly than is just (3def28). It does not follow from the fact that one is not humble, and hence does not think of oneself as intrinsically weak, that one thinks of oneself more highly than is just. On the contrary, insofar as one does not think of oneself as intrinsically weak, as one in fact is not, to that extent the absence of humility promotes a just conception of oneself.

Furthermore, although Spinoza denies that humility is a virtue strictly so-called, he does think that it has political value, as we also noted in § 1. On his view, people generally fail to live virtuously (4p54s). But a society consisting largely of non-virtuous folks who are humble is generally more peaceful, easier to govern and more united, than one consisting largely of non-virtuous folks who are not humble. “So since men must sin, they ought rather to sin in that direction. If weak-minded men were all equally proud, ashamed of nothing, and afraid of nothing, how could they be united or restrained by any bonds?” (4p54s). While commending humility in an effort to undermine people’s trust in their own reason is illegitimate, commending it in an effort to help them “live from the dictates of reason” is legitimate (4p54s).^[33]

3.1 The Nature of Spinoza’s Re-Evaluation of Humility

Is Spinoza’s re-evaluation of humility shift substantial, reflecting a genuine change of heart about humility’s worth? Or is it simply terminological, reflecting a mere change of words? To anticipate, my position is that it is substantial. But not everyone agrees. Noting that Spinoza attributes great importance to recognizing our weakness in both the Short Treatise and the Ethics, Julie Cooper proposes that Spinoza’s re-evaluation of humility is simply terminological:

If Spinoza’s evaluation of humility changes in the Ethics, his position on acknowledgment of finitude does not. In both texts, Spinoza contends that having an accurate assessment of one’s power, or lack thereof, ‘is the chief means of attaining our perfection […]’ In other words, the substance of Spinoza’s position on self-evaluation does not change as he matures, although his terminology does; in his mature works, he declines to call proper self-estimation “humility.” (Cooper 2013, 190 n50)

As Spinoza always thinks that having a proper assessment of one’s weakness (and power) is a virtue, Cooper suggests, perhaps he simply changes the name of that affect from “humility” to something else. (As we will see, a certain species of selfesteem is a top contender.)

While I believe that Spinoza’s re-evaluation of humility is not merely verbal, there is an important feature of his mature account that may suggest as much at first glance. Recall that there are the two ways of apprehending our lack of power. We can apprehend ourselves as intrinsically weak, as lacking power as a matter of our essence. Because we are not intrinsically weak, this apprehension is false and the affect arising from it (humility) is not a virtue. But we can also apprehend ourselves as relatively weak, weaker than someone else. Because we are in fact relatively weak, this apprehension is true provided that our comparison is correct. It also seems to give rise to an affect that is a virtue. In the very same passage in which he denies that humility is a virtue, Spinoza argues that if someone, rather than apprehending himself as intrinsically weak,

conceives his lack of power because he understands (intelligit) something more powerful than himself, by the knowledge (cognitione) of which he determines his power of acting, then we conceive nothing but that the man understands himself distinctly (homo se ipsum distincte intelligit). (4p53d)

Someone who veridically apprehends their weakness in relation to someone else, Spinoza writes, thereby “understands himself distinctly” (distincte intelligit). But as we have seen, understanding is coextensive with virtue. This affect therefore seems to be a virtue.^[34] It is also curiously reminiscent of humility.^[35] It too arises from an apprehension of one’s lack of power. As such, it too involves the acknowledgement that one is weak.^[36]

While Spinoza does not tell us which affect he has in mind in the above excerpt from 4p53d, Cooper, Carlisle, Soyarslan, and Wolf have argued that it is a species of acquiescentia in se ipso, which roughly translates to self-esteem or self-contentment.^[37] Opposed (opponitur) to humility, which is a sadness arising from the contemplation of one’s lack of power, acquiescentia in se ipso is fundamentally a joy arising from the contemplation of one’s power (3def25, 3p30s).^[38] There are many varieties of acquiescentia. Spinoza speaks interchangeably of acquiescentia and self-love (amor sui (3def27), philautia (3p55s)). Some species of acquiescentia are passive/non-virtuous, such as pride (3def28, 3def28exp) and vainglory (4p58s). Others are active/virtuous, such as blessedness and satisfaction of mind (5p36s).

Now, as Cooper, Carlisle, Soyarslan, and Wolf have noted, Spinoza seems to recognize yet another species of virtuous acquiescentia. What Cooper refers to as “proper self-estimation” in the passage above, this kind of acquiescentia arises from a veridical and relational apprehension of one’s power, or what here amounts to the same, of one’s lack of power. If we come to understand that “human power is very limited and infinitely surpassed by the power of external causes,” so that we also see that “we do not have an absolute power to adapt things outside us to our use” but must always obey the order of Nature, Spinoza writes in the Appendix to Part 4, “[i]f we understand this clearly and distinctly, that part of us which is defined by understanding (intelligentia) […] will be entirely satisfied (acquiescet) with this, and will strive to persevere in that satisfaction (acquiescentia)” (4app32, I/276/5–17).

Spinoza denies that humility is a virtue, but in one breath, he directs our attention to a humility-like affect that is a virtue. This is significant. If the humility-like version of acquiescentia in the Ethics is a virtue and is simply what Spinoza referred to as humility in the Short Treatise, it would follow that his re-evaluation of humility is merely terminological. It would thus be the case that, as Cooper puts it, “the substance of Spinoza’s position on self-evaluation does not change as he matures, although his terminology does; in his mature works, he declines to call proper self-estimation ‘humility.’”^[39]

To avoid confusing it with what Spinoza calls self-esteem (Edelmodigheid) in the Short Treatise, let us call the humility-like version of acquiescentia in the Ethics relational humility. And let us call what Spinoza designates as humility (humilitas) in the Ethics intrinsic humility. The key difference between these is that relational humility arises from an apprehension of oneself as relatively weak, while intrinsic humility arises from an apprehension of oneself as intrinsically weak. For the sake of argument, let us grant that relational humility is and remains a virtue between the Short Treatise and the Ethics. Crucially, let us also grant that relational humility falls under the concept of humility (Nedrigheid) in the Short Treatise. Then Spinoza’s re-evaluation of humility is merely terminological only if his claim that humility is a virtue in the Short Treatise is restricted to relational humility. For if it also refers to intrinsic humility, then we do have a substantial shift, namely with respect to intrinsic humility. But we have good reason to doubt that Spinoza’s claim in the Short Treatise that humility is a virtue is restricted to relational humility.

First, Spinoza’s definition of humility in the Short Treatise very plausibly picks out intrinsic humility. It says that humility arises from knowledge of ‘one’s own’ (syne) imperfection. Intrinsic humility arises from an apprehension of oneself as intrinsically weak. Because weakness is an imperfection and intrinsic features very plausibly count as one’s own, Spinoza’s definition of humility very plausibly picks out intrinsic humility, if not exclusively, so at least in addition to relational humility.

Second, in the Short Treatise, Spinoza nowhere warns us that his discussion of humility is restricted to relational humility. But if it were so restricted, he would presumably have said so. The reason is that Spinoza’s audience would expect his discussion of humility to encompass intrinsic humility. The standard view in the Jewish and Christian traditions is that we should be humble because we are to some extent intrinsically imperfect (on account of such things as our corporeality or original sin). Spinoza is presumably well-aware of this, so he is presumably also well-aware that his audience would take his discussion of humility to encompass intrinsic humility. Because Spinoza does not flag that his discussion is restricted only to relational humility, we have reason to believe that it is not so restricted.

Because Spinoza’s discussion and favorable evaluation of humility in the Short Treatise thus concerns intrinsic humility, it follows that his re-evaluation of humility is not merely terminological. Even if relational humility (the humility-like version of acquiescentia) is and remains a virtue across the Short Treatise and the Ethics, intrinsic humility does not. And that is more than a change of words. It is a change of heart.

3.2 The Explanation of Spinoza’s Re-Evaluation of Humility

Between the Short Treatise and the Ethics, Spinoza goes from embracing to rejecting the view that intrinsic humility (henceforth ‘humility’) is a virtue. The obvious next question is, why? In this subsection, I argue that Spinoza changes his mind about humility because he changes his mind about human power. In particular, he comes to deny that humility is a virtue because he comes to believe that our nature simply consists in power.

3.3 The Significance of Spinoza’s Re-Evaluation of Humility

We have seen that Spinoza rethinks humility, that he rethinks human power, and that he rethinks humility because he rethinks human power. Apart from explaining Spinoza’s re-evaluation of humility and, in so doing, connecting it to another important development, what do we learn from all this?

One thing we learn is that Spinoza becomes theologically more unorthodox over time. Two doctrines that are fundamental to the Christian and Jewish traditions are the views that humility is a virtue (see, e. g., Psalms 8:4–5 and Matthew 23:12) and, relatedly, that human beings are imperfect as a matter of our nature (e. g., Genesis 18:27 and Psalms 51:5). The Spinoza of the Short Treatise embraces both of these doctrines. Humility is a virtue, and to the extent that humans lack power as a matter of their nature, we are also imperfect as a matter of our nature. The Spinoza of the Ethics, on the other hand, rejects both of these claims. Human beings are only imperfect or weak in relation to other things and, relatedly, humility is not a virtue. Insofar as Spinoza goes from embracing to rejecting two doctrines that are fundamental to the Jewish and Christian traditions, to that extent he becomes theologically less orthodox over time. Attention to Spinoza’s re-thinking of humility and power thus suggests that the general orientation of the evolution of his thought is one of moving away from these traditions.

In this section, I will not delve further into Spinoza’s connections to major religions. Instead, I will focus on a major upshot concerning the interpretation of his metaphysics, particularly the kind of acosmism that it makes sense to regard Spinoza as considering. Acosmism in the standard sense says that finite things do not exist. While much of Spinoza’s philosophy concerns finite things, there is a long tradition of commentators who regard Spinoza as (more or less willingly) committed to denying the reality of the finite.^[45] Despite this tradition, most commentators today reject acosmist readings. One major reason for this is that acosmism in the standard sense seems too nihilistic – as tantamount to a denial that there is a world. Charging Spinoza with embracing acosmism, and condemning him for thus embracing nihilism, Hegel writes that Spinoza’s God “is as it were a dark shapeless abyss which engulfs all definite content as radically null, and produces from itself nothing that has a positive subsistence of its own” (Hegel 1969, § 151). Accordingly,

Spinozism might really just as well or even better have been termed acosmicism, since according to its teaching it is not to the world, finite existence, the universe, that reality and permanency are to be ascribed, but rather to God alone as the substantial. (Hegel 1995, 281)^[46]

I will not consider whether Spinoza can or does ultimately offer a satisfactory argument for the existence of finite things, one that is consistent with his principles. Rather than attempting to resolve the acosmist debate, I hope to help us understand it in a new way. Attention to Spinoza’s re-thinking of humility and power, I argue, opens up the possibility for a non-nihilistic understanding of acosmism, one that affirms the reality of the finite—not as finite simpliciter, but as God himself, acting in particular ways. This invites us to reconsider what it means to be an acosmist.

To see this, first notice that these shifts highlight an important transition in Spinoza’s account of the reality of finite things. Whereas the Spinoza of the Short Treatise argues that finite modes are altogether bereft of intrinsic power (§ 3.2.1), power whose metaphysical source is the nature of the agent, the Spinoza of the Ethics argues that absolutely all things have some such power. “Nothing exists,” he writes in Proposition 36 of Part 1, “from whose nature (ex cujus natura) some effect does not follow” (italics added). Indeed, the Spinoza of the Ethics argues that finite modes fundamentally are the power they have: “The power of each thing … is nothing but the given, or actual, essence of the thing itself” (3p7d). Between the Short Treatise and the Ethics, then, Spinoza comes to imbue, and indeed identify, finite modes with power.^[47] But going back at least to Plato (Sophist 247d8-e4), power is a paradigmatic mark of being.^[48] To be something, so the thought goes, one must be able to do something. Insofar as power is a paradigmatic mark of being, then insofar as the finite modes of the Short Treatise have no power of their own, whereas those of the Ethics do, to that extent the latter are more robustly real than the former.

The following passage reinforces this conclusion. It wraps up Spinoza’s discussion of love and argues that “if we use our intellect well,” we cannot but love God, and God alone:

First, because (omdat) we find that God alone has being, and all other things have no being, but are modes (God alleen maar wezen heeft, en alle andere dingen geen wezens, maar wyzen zyn]. And since modes cannot be understood properly without the being on which they immediately depend, and we have already shown that when we who love something come to know something better than what we love, we always fall on it at once, and leave the first thing, it follows incontrovertibly that when we come to know God, who has all perfection in himself alone [die alle volmaaktheid in hem alleen heeft], we must love him. (KV II 5, G I/64/20–28)

Spinoza reaches the conclusion that once we come to know God, we must and can only love God based on the claims that “God alone has being [while] all other things have no being, but are modes” and that “[God] has all perfection in himself alone.” Each of these claims suggest that modes become more robustly real between the Short Treatise and the Ethics. Insofar as the modes of the Short Treatise lack being (wezen), whereas those of the Ethics have being, it seems that the latter are more robustly real than the former.^[49] And insofar as the modes of the Short Treatise also lack perfection – “God has all perfection in himself alone (alleen)” – whereas those of the Ethics have perfection, it again seems that the latter are metaphysically more robust entities than the former.^[50]

While Spinoza’s claims that modes lack both being and perfection in the Short Treatise exemplify the transition I am trying to highlight, they are also puzzling. As its full title asserts, the Short Treatise on God, Man, and his Well-Being is about human beings. Since human beings are modes, and since much of the Short Treatise concerns modes in general, Spinoza clearly believes that modes exist. But how can something exist and yet lack being? He also asserts, and his account of aversion requires, that there is perfection in each thing (KV II 6, G I/66/33–35, I/67/1–4). But if there is, how can God be said to have all perfection in himself alone?

To avoid these difficulties, one might propose a different interpretation. When Spinoza argues that modes have no being and no perfection, what he means to say is that they have no independent being and no independent perfection.^[51] The point is thus that since modes are not substances, whatever being or perfection they have they owe to the substance of which they are modes, that is, to God. Although it adds something that is not found literally in the text (the ‘independent’ qualifier), this reading is supported by the fact that the passage quoted above and the larger discussion it is embedded in concerns the dependence of modes on substance. It might also appear to lessen the contrast between the Short Treatise and the Ethics which I have been stressing. Upon closer inspection, however, I do not think that it does, at least not significantly. For while the Spinoza of the Short Treatise emphasizes the lack of power, perfection, and being of finite modes, the Spinoza of the Ethics is careful to point out that finite modes only lack these in relation to other things, not in themselves. This suggests Spinoza has come to see more clearly that modes have or are something positive of their own. So, even if Spinoza only means to say that modes lack independent being and independent perfection, this passage from KV II 5 still highlights the relevant transition, namely that Spinoza comes to regard finite modes as more robustly real than he initially did.

Spinoza’s evolving stance on power does not only allow us to explain his re-evaluation of humility, then. It also draws our attention to a striking transition in his conception of the reality of finite modes. Even if the Spinoza of the Short Treatise did not intend to deny the reality of finite things simpliciter – that is, even if he did not intend to embrace acosmism of the standard and nihilistic variety – his conception of modes as lacking power, perfection, and being adumbrates and may commit him to it. Since Spinoza at any rate affirms the reality of finite things much more emphatically in the Ethics than he does in the Short Treatise, to that extent we find that he moves away from acosmism in the traditional and negative sense over the course of his philosophical career.

Spinoza renders modes more robustly real by imbuing, and indeed identifying, them with power. But in so doing, he at the same time shrinks the metaphysical gap between finite modes and God. For the power he imbues or identifies modes with is nothing but God’s power:

The power by which singular things (and consequently, [any] man) preserve their being is the power itself of God, or (sive) Nature (ipsa Dei sive Naturae potentia) […] not insofar as it is infinite, but insofar as it can be explained through the man’s actual essence. (4p4d)

Whereas the finite modes of the Short Treatise have no intrinsic power, so that God is the exclusive metaphysical source of power in the world, the finite modes of the Ethics have come to share in God’s own power. Indeed, because modes fundamentally are the power they have, the finite modes of the Ethics are God’s power, not insofar as God’s power is infinite, but insofar as it exists or is manifested in certain and determinate ways. Not just that. Because God fundamentally is the power he can also be said to have (1p34), the finite modes of the Ethics are God, not insofar as he is infinite, but insofar as he acts in particular ways.^[52] Between the Short Treatise and the Ethics, then, finite modes have received a significant promotion. Not only have we come to share in or indeed come to be (a particular quantum of) God’s power. We have become God or Nature itself, acting in particular ways.

Over the course of his philosophical career, Spinoza shrinks the metaphysical gap between finite modes and God, and he does so in particular by raising modes up and into God. Sangiacomo and Nachtomy defend a different interpretation of the sense in which Spinoza comes to identify the power of finite modes with the power of God between the Short Treatise and the Ethics. They argue that he does so by effectively reducing the power of God to the power of finite modes.^[53] While God’s power is prior to the power of finite things in the Short Treatise, and while the standard reading of the Ethics “presupposes that God’s power has some sort of priority over finite things,” Sangiacomo and Nachtomy contend that “in the Ethics, God’s power cannot be conceived as prior to the power of finite things. […] God’s power is nothing other than the power through which finite things strive to bring about determinate effects” (Sangiacomo and Nachtomy 2018, 119; italics in original). God is active exactly insofar as the modes are active (Sangiacomo and Nachtomy 2018, 120).

I find many aspects of Sangiacomo and Nachtomy’s article insightful, but I disagree that God’s power is not prior to the power of finite things for Spinoza. The ontological (causal, conceptual) priority of substance over finite modes, it seems to me, demands that God’s power be and be conceived as prior to the power of finite things (cf. 2p10s, G II/93/30-II/94/4). Sangiacomo and Nachtomy consider this objection, responding that their view does not violate the priority of substance because substance only needs to be modified in some way but not in any particular way (Sangiacomo and Nachtomy 2018, 122). This response may safeguard the view that substance must be modified from the objection that substance therefore depends on its modes. But without further elaboration, it does not safeguard the view that God’s power simply consists in the power of finite modes from the same objection. For the view that God’s power simply consists in the power of finite modes is stronger than the claim that substance must be modified.

A further issue is that if we reduce the power of substance to the power of finite modes, we thereby seem to reduce substance to the totality of finite modes. Substance is fundamentally identical to its power (1p34), while finite modes are fundamentally identical to their power (3p7). If the power of substance is nothing but the power of finite modes, it therefore seems that substance is nothing but the totality of finite modes, which is metaphysically impossible. Rather than collapsing the power of God into the power of finite modes between the Short Treatise and the Ethics, I contend that Spinoza inflates the power of finite modes to God’s power, not insofar as it is infinite, but insofar as it is expressed in certain and determinate ways. Because this reading affirms the priority of God’s power over the power of finite things (namely insofar as God’s power is infinite), whereas the “reduction reading” denies it, it is substantively, not simply conceptually, different from the latter. For the same reason, I believe that it offers a more satisfactory description of the transition between the Short Treatise and the Ethics.

We have seen that Spinoza makes modes more robustly real by imbuing or identifying them with power. But we have also seen that the power he imbues or identifies modes with is God’s power. The upshot is that Spinoza makes modes more robustly real by quite literally making them more God. The very same move whereby Spinoza distances himself from nihilistic acosmism therefore at the same time brings him closer to what we may regard as a non-nihilistic form of acosmism. This doctrine is difficult to express. It essentially says that finite things exist, though not as finite simpliciter. To say that finite do not exist simpliciter (as the nihilistic acosmist has it) or that they do exist simpliciter (as the non-acosmist has it) is misleading because it fails to highlight the intimate way in which the being and power of finite modes are bound up with God’s being and power. Finite things do exist for Spinoza, but they exist as God, acting in particular ways. This position is acosmist inasmuch as God is in a strong sense the only thing that exists. Yet it is non-nihilistic inasmuch as finite things also exist, albeit as God acting in this or that way.

Attention to Spinoza’s evolving stance on humility and power thus urge an important shift in perspective. What Spinoza’s acosmist critics insist is an annihilation of the finite, Spinoza invites us to think of as an inflation. To be sure, this does not resolve the debate over (nihilistic) acosmism: to avoid the charge of nihilism, Spinoza needs to show how finite things can exist given his principles. But it does put Spinoza in a better dialectical position vis-à-vis his Hegelian critic. In insisting that Spinoza simply eliminates the finite, the Hegelian fails to appreciate the positive reality that Spinoza attributes to finite things. Far from being cast into an abyss of annihilation, finite things are promoted to achieve a kind of divine status. in Spinoza’s system

That Spinoza comes to reject humility’s virtue is just what we should expect given this promotion. On the traditional view Spinoza himself embraces in the Short Treatise, human beings should be humble because they are to some extent intrinsically imperfect. Because imperfection is antithetical to God’s being, it is as if there is an ungodly part of us on account of which we should be humble. But as modes come to be filled up, so to speak, by God’s being, that is, as God’s power comes to be wholly constitutive of our essence, the traditional rationale of humility’s virtue is undermined. Spinoza’s eventual promotion of modes renders the traditional account of humility’s virtue obsolete.