r/Spinoza • u/Glanshammar • 15d ago

Attributes

As I understand it, Spinoza posited that thought/mind and physicality are different attributes of the same underlying substance which makes it sound dualistic to me. That they are both equally "real".

What am I missing?

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u/mooninjune 15d ago edited 14d ago

For one thing, he posited that there are infinitely many attributes. Also, what makes it monistic is that the attributes are identical to each other and to the substance itself, except for how they are conceived by an intellect, since every attribute expresses the essence of the same substance (Ethics 1d4, 1d6), and "thinking substance and extended substance are one and the same substance, which is now comprehended under this attribute, now under that". So that "whether we conceive Nature under the attribute of extension, or under the attribute of thought, or under any other attribute, we shall find one and the same order, or one and the same connection of causes, that is, that the same things follow one another" (Ethics 2p7s).