from Spinoza's point of view - mind and matter -
two attributes of God - two expressions of substance
to speak this way is to adopt an objective stance
a kind of scientific view - a Spinoza science -
the world is made of the physical and mental -
or to be more precise - we can approach the world
from a physical point of view - and get a complete
picture - and / or from a mental point of view -
and - this too gives us a total picture
the idea of two ways of knowing the one thing
but really isn't this just one way of knowing -
via the mind
(are we to say the physical (i.e. the body)
'knows' the mental (the mind) ?)
and further - is not the physical world still
object - to the subject of knowing?
a question too - is the mind in knowing the
physical world - knowing itself - or to
scale it down - is knowledge of the body -
knowledge of the mind?
Spinoza's view would be fine - if we didn't
have to account for the 'self' of self-
consciousness
the mind knowing itself -
the mind as an object of consciousness
in the same way as the physical world is -
ideas and physical states - we can see -
as being a symmetry -
but once you bring in self - a symmetry is broken
the mind is not just a reflection of the body
it is a reflection of itself
and so - the mind (itself) and / or its contents -
are object - of the mind - (this just is self-consciousness)
AND the physical world - too - is object of the mind
what do we say of this mind - that holds itself and the
physical world - as object?
at the least - that it is two-dimensional?
the mind that views - whatever - is if you like
a level of mind -
and the mind that is (with the physical world) -
an object of this view
(the mind as subject and object - there goes the
neighbourhood - and the heap of rubble on the lawn -
the great home of Western logic - Aristotle Russell
Frege - walking the streets)
I think for Spinoza - the idea is that the mind is -
like the physical world - one dimensional - not of
course that it can be - but this is his objective
picture - his 'scientific view'
and I am not here trying to argue for the privilege
of the self in all this -
the thing is you can't discount it - and any objective
view (just as any subjective view) must give account
of the relation of mind to mind -
for without such no account of mind / body will be
successful
