What role does the need for ๐๐๐๐ก๐๐๐๐ก๐ฆ play in Spinozaโs comprehensive philosophy? What role does it play in any philosopherโs vision of the whole? Can we even speak of โphilosophyโ without this essential ingredient somewhere in the mix? Spinoza seems to have implicitly believed that nature โ or substance, reality as a whole โ operates and is ruled by rational laws or principles, whether or not we fully understand these laws. But Spinoza believed they were intelligible or knowable. He believed that the awakened and clarified human mind is fully capable of perceiving and understanding these rational laws.
Nietzsche, on the other hand, appears to be just as certain that nature and everything in it is fluid, immutable, irrational, and not subject to some overarching rational principle. But this kind of protean fluidity โ this eternal flux โ would seem, on the face of it, to be fundamentally inhospitable to philosophizing. Perhaps not at odds with continual fantasizing or โpoetizing,โ philosophy nonetheless traditionally depends either on the actual, graspable presence of some anchoring certainty or the โrealisticโ prospect of arriving at (or restoring/recovering) such an absolute ground or basis for our thinking.
Kantโs ๐ถ๐๐๐ก๐๐๐ข๐ is generally held to have closed off access to any metaphysical absolutes or certainties outside of us. We are, as it were, locked inside our rational faculties and there are no guarantees that the structures and limitations inherent in our powers of understanding correspond with the structure and character of โthings in themselvesโ โ the noumenal realm just beyond the reach of our demonstrably limited senses and intellect. In the very activity (or passivity) of perceiving, we change things.
The mathematical-tautological-axiomatic character of Spinozaโs ontological and epistemological doctrines stand in sharp contrast with his teachings about the foundation of polities. The laws, customs, goals, and constitutional principles that are at the foundation of a polity or human community are โ or should be โ rooted in the consensus of the members. Such a consensus or agreement consists, not of necessary and rationally derived truths, but of opinions and preferences. Plato, in the ๐ ๐๐๐ข๐๐๐๐, attempted to draw a picture of a polity established solely upon natural and rational grounds. This ideal โcity in speechโ is revealed to be impracticable, an all but impossible utopia (or โno-placeโ). Nevertheless, the dialectical process โ the rational quest for answers to the fundamental human questions โ is founded upon the (optimistic) belief in at least provisional and incomplete answers to these perennial questions. In other words, the quest โ though limited in terms of what we can expect from it โ is not entirely futile or meaningless, as some modern pessimists and cynics would have us believe.
