One of the minor oddities of Reichenbach’s (1951) The Rise of Scientific Philosophy is the repeated explicit references to Spinoza (four times spaced through various chapters). None of these are especially interesting, but Spinoza’s work is held up as an “extreme form” of “ethico-cognitive parallelism” (p.53) in an arc that runs from Plato to Kant. On Reichenbach’s account the project of this arc of philosophers comes to an end once it’s clear after the development of nineteenth century mathematics that the synthetic a priori does not exist (p. 143 & 278). The fourth mention of Spinoza involves the claim that Spinoza’s deterministic worldview presupposes a causal principle (p. 165), which, if I am not mistaken, on Reichenbach’s account is undermined by quantum mechanics. (There is also the suggestion that Spinozism is ruled out by the probabilism implied by statistical mechanics.) None of this is especially illuminating or exhibits much interest in Spinoza’s philosophy.
Reichenbach and Spinozism
Reichenbach and Spinozism
Reichenbach and Spinozism
One of the minor oddities of Reichenbach’s (1951) The Rise of Scientific Philosophy is the repeated explicit references to Spinoza (four times spaced through various chapters). None of these are especially interesting, but Spinoza’s work is held up as an “extreme form” of “ethico-cognitive parallelism” (p.53) in an arc that runs from Plato to Kant. On Reichenbach’s account the project of this arc of philosophers comes to an end once it’s clear after the development of nineteenth century mathematics that the synthetic a priori does not exist (p. 143 & 278). The fourth mention of Spinoza involves the claim that Spinoza’s deterministic worldview presupposes a causal principle (p. 165), which, if I am not mistaken, on Reichenbach’s account is undermined by quantum mechanics. (There is also the suggestion that Spinozism is ruled out by the probabilism implied by statistical mechanics.) None of this is especially illuminating or exhibits much interest in Spinoza’s philosophy.