Spinoza defines substance as 'that which is in itself and is conceived through itself.' What does this definition require?
The core of Spinoza's argument for substance monism (only one substance) rests on which claim?
'Deus sive Natura' ('God, or Nature') is best understood as expressing that…
To call Spinoza's God 'immanent, not transitive' (Ethics I, Prop. 18) means that…
Which claim would Spinoza REJECT as a prejudice rooted in anthropomorphism?
Spinoza's parallelism — 'the order and connection of ideas is the same as the order and connection of things' — is guaranteed by the fact that…
Why does Descartes' mind–body interaction problem never arise for Spinoza?
For Spinoza, in what sense can a person be 'free' given his strict determinism?
✍️ Open answer · AI-graded
Explain and critically assess Spinoza's argument that there can be only one substance, and show how his doctrine of parallelism dissolves the Cartesian mind-body problem.
What to cover: Trace the monism argument from the definitions of substance, attribute, and mode through the key propositions, then explain Deus sive Natura and how thought and extension as two attributes of one substance yield parallelism rather than interaction.
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