The Ethics of Interpretation: Interpreting the Paradoxical Singularity of Spinoza's Ontological Argument

In this dissertation, I interpret Spinoza’s ontological argument to mean that the partiality of a part (mode) cannot be conceived except within the context of a whole (substance) in which it participates. Yet, insofar as a modified part (in-another) has a true idea of its own modified partiality, then that idea, and whatever follows from it, must be as irreducibly whole (in-itself) as the substantial whole in which it participates. This constitutes what I describe as the paradox of singularity in Spinoza’s thought because it establishes an ontology in which singular things are singularized or differentiated through an intersection of causes that must be conceived either in-themselves, in-another, or both at once.

Given Spinoza’s (in)famous concept of absolutely infinite substance, the role and function of individuality and individuation in his philosophy has been a popular subject of dispute in the 20th century secondary literature. Some authors have sought to portray Spinoza as a champion of an untethered individualism, whereas others have emphasized the collectivistic bonds that bind individuals together in cooperative endeavors. Most productively, recent scholars have presented Spinoza as a thinker of what they call transindividuality. Spinoza, however, never used the term transindividuality in his writings, but he did employ two interrelated concepts of singularity (res singulares) which I thus argue should be described instead as paradoxical singularity. Many of the proponents of Spinoza’s transindividualism, or what I call paradoxical singularity, have overlooked the way in which his views on individuality and collectivity follows from the paradoxical logic with which Spinoza claims to know of the necessary existence of God. For this reason, few have understood how or why Spinoza’s ontological argument facilitates the non-ancillary adequacy between religion and philosophy as equivalent expressions of this immanent certainty. I therefore demonstrate how Spinoza’s ontological argument offers a paradoxical logic with which to identify, relate, and interpret universality and particularity.

I argue that Spinoza’s ontological argument for the necessary existence of God constitutes a theory of action, way of being, or an ethos in which philosophy and religion are functionally identical. Yet, given the paradox of singularity that it involves, participation in this ethos presupposes a power of interpretation from which and for which individuals of a compatible nature strive to persevere in their being together.