**Links to:** [[Self]], [[Selfæta]], [[Self-model]], [[Self-evidence]], [[Self-deception]], [[Descartes]], [[Mathematics]], [[Sum]], [[Summarizing]], [[Aristotle]], [[Spinoza]], [[Descartes]], [[Kant]], [[Hegel]], [[Attribute]], [[Subject]], [[Mode]], [[God]], [[Infinity]], etc. _This note is very brief and serves as a series of reminders, nothing else._ >Ahora que no sos Mala fama y cumbiero Usás ropa apretada y pelo corto bien gorrero Cuando andás cortando fuga Te cruzás con la vagancia Y nosotros, puro ritmo, vino tinto y sustancia >Vos llevás la marca de la gorra Y, tocá que te la vuelo ahora Vos llevás la marca de la gorra Y, tocá que te la vuelo ahora Vos llevás la marca de la gorra Y, tocá que te la vuelo ahora >Y esto es ritmo, sustancia > >Mala Fama, _Ritmo Sustancia_, 2000. >“63. The body belonging to a Monad (which is its entelechy or its soul) constitutes along with the entelechy what may be called a living being, and along with the soul what is called an animal. Now this body of living being or of an animal is always organic […]” (_Monadology_, Leibniz, 1714: GP VI, p. 618; trans. Latta 1898, p. 253). >“It is true that in my opinion all that can truly be called *a substance* is a living being” (_Je Vous suis obligé_, 1716: GP VI, p. 624; Leibniz, translation Escribano-Cabeza 2020). >“Philosophers had developed the distinction between a substance and its attributes partly in order to mark the logical difference between the ultimate subjects of knowledge or judgement and what we can know or say about these subjects, and partly also to answer puzzles about change and identity; the subject of a judgement, that which we know about, may significantly be said to possess different qualities at different times, while itself persisting through time as an identifiable subject with a whole series of different qualities inhering in it.  Whenever we make a statement and add to our knowledge, we are saying of some subject or substance that it possesses some quality or attribute, or perhaps that it stands in some relation to some other subject or substance. The next step is to divide the attributes of a substance—or the qualities which it may be said to possess—into two categories: first, the essential or defining attributes or properties, those which make it the kind of thing it is, and, secondly, the accidental attributes, which it may acquire and lose without changing its essential nature; in Spinoza’s terminology the words ‘necessary’ and ‘contingent’ are generally substituted for ‘essential’ and ‘accidental’.” > >Hampshire, _Spinoza_, pp. 31-2. To Descartes substance is that which there is, making it self-explanatory (supposedly). Famously, he distinguishes between _res extensa_ and _res cogitans_. To Spinoza, in response: substance is that which is independent, in itself. The absolute texture, a “primary quality” that, unlike an attribute or a mode, cannot change. This is why, in the famous _Ethica: Demonstrated in Geometrical Order_,[^1] Spinoza hierarchizes as follows: ### **Substance** (_Ethica_ 1, d3): >By substance I understand what is in itself and is conceived through _itself_, i.e., that whose concept does not require the concept of another thing, from which it must be formed. Nothing needs to ground substance, substance is. So, no division in the Cartesian dualist sense, this is substance monism (or _dual-aspect_ monism). ### **Attribute** (1, d4): >By attribute I understand what the intellect perceives of a substance, as constituting its essence. Attributes are the ways substance is expressed, for example: wave _or_ particle duality. But: same substance. Spinoza also rejects Aristotelian form/matter, and talks instead about _thought_ and _extension_. ### **Mode** (1, d5): >By mode I understand the affections of a substance, _or_ that which is in another, through which it is also conceived. Also termed _affections_, modifications. In our terms: _modulations_. Everything perceived is a mode. There are infinite modes and finite modes: - Extension’s infinite modes: principles of extended things (laws of physics). - Thought’s infinite modes: principles which govern thought (logic, etc.). - Extension’s finite modes: object-like things. - Thought’s finite modes: concept-like things. More interesting and complete information about the subject: [here](https://faculty.fiu.edu/~hauptli/Spinoza%27sEthicsLectureSupplement.htm#_ftnref4). **Also**: (1, d6): “By God I understand a being absolutely infinite, that is, a substance consisting of an infinity of attributes, of which each one expresses an eternal and infinite essence.” (_Per Deum intelligo ens absolute infinitum, hoc est, substantiam constantem infinitis attributis, quorum unumquodque aeternam, et infinitam essentiam exprimit_.) Why _aeternam_ et _infinitam_? Just a conventional distinction between time and space? ### Hegel, [[Subject]] as substance One cannot be a philosopher without being a Spinozist, says Hegel. To Hegel, thinking about thinking, philosophy, is substance _as subject_. _Substance_ is the objective, necessary relationships; the ontology, _what there is_. Truth is not “gotten at” by thinking substance; we need the subject _and_ their specific, individuated (dialectical) epistemology. In the _Phenomenology of Spirit_ Hegel presents a view of the subject’s immediacy arriving at substance, the phenomenology is how we experience a science of consciousness, building itself. In the [[Science of Logic]] he differentiates between the _objective logic_ (doctrine of being, doctrine of essence, i.e. quantity, quality) and the _subjective logic_ (doctrine of concept: judgments, e.g. the [[Syllogism]]). In the logic, the subject knows itself _as substance_: both substance and subject. See: [[Reason]], the part on [[Hegel]]. Reason as purpose; self-actualizing movement. [[Identity]] and [[Difference]]: substance as subject is differentiation from whatever is not itself; the negative movement involved in this leads to the abstraction of thinking: removing, changing, moving: circular purposiveness returning ([[Recursivity]]) to itself, as it changes. But whatever remains a common denominator, somehow determines the identity of the subject. #todo ### Footnotes [^1]: Written between 1661 and 1675, published posthumously: 1677.