O Deus de Espinosa: substância una ou múltipla? Um estudo sobre a possibilidade do monismo

Abstract

This work has the purpose to comprehend the monism s thesis, i.e. the thesis that only one substance exists which unity is secured by the compatibility between its absolute and infinite nature, and the real multiplicity of its infinite attributes. But the monism is not accepted as not problematic by all the interpreters, which, if confirmed, would lead Spinoza s system to ruin. In the first chapter, the monism s problem will be presented through the critic of one of those interpreters, Ferdinand Alquié. According to him, Spinoza cannot establish, rationally, the possibility of the absolute substance. We will see that, Alquié, not being able to conceive how the infinite attributes can constitute the essence of a substance that is unique, concludes that the monism s thesis is incompatible with the argumentative structure of the first book of the Ethic. After the explanation of the monism s problem, presented from Alquié, we will try to recover the internal coherence of Spinoza s work. This study aim to make explicit the concepts of substance and attribute, looking to follow the two stages of the monism s construction along the first eleven propositions of the Ethic, that is: (1) the proof that exists one unique substance per attribute; (2) the proof that exists only one substance for all attributes. To advance in the ontological problems involved in the monism s construction, and how Spinoza s position can only be comprehended through a profound transformation of the concepts inherited by the cartesianism, the research will favour the masterly interpretations propounded by Martial Gueroult (Spinoza, I, Dieu; Aubier-Montaigne, Paris, 1968) and Gilles Deleuze (Spinoza et le problème de l'expression; Les Editions de Minuit, Paris, 1968). These interpreters carry out each in its own fashion a genealogy of the absolutely infinite substance and present solutions that allow us to think the monism as coherent. Such solutions will be presented and evaluated, aiming to know to what extent they can show the problem of the monism and solve it in a plausible way.