Multiplicidade de atributos e monismo em Espinosa

Abstract

This dissertation will analyze the relationship between God and his attributes by investigating Baruch de Espinosa’s texts: A Short Treatise and Ethics. Espinozism defines God as a substance that consists of infinite attributes, and defines attribute as what constitutes the essence of substance. It is possible to say then, that the essence of the divine substance itself constitutes an infinity of attributes. These attributes, therefore, are infinite and infinitely perfect in kind, that is to say, they are unlimited: they are not included in other things that exist or are conceived. It is worth asking, then, how God relates to His attributes, which exist and are conceived without mutual contributions to each other’s essences, given their respective infinities and autonomy from each other, since they cannot exist in God as effects. We must explain the extent to which said attributes can be attributed to a single being or whether they are merely constituents of its essence; given the fact that each attribute is infinite and supremely perfect in kind, it should exist independently of all other attributes. Investigating the text Short Treatise, one’s objective is to explain that the difficulty in understanding the relation between God and his attributes results from the consideration of these attributes as things which are numerically distinct, while God exists as a conglomeration of all of them existing simultaneously. In turn, in an examination of Ethics, one’s objective is to explain this relationship through considering the ontological equality of each of God’s attributes, verifying that the real distinction of attributes doesn’t imply a numeric distinction between them.