Spinoza, Emanation, and Formal Causation

Abstract

abstract: Some recent scholars have argued that Spinoza's conception of causation should be understood in terms of the Aristotelian notion of a formal cause. I argue that while they are right to identify causation in Spinoza as a relation of entailment from an essence, they are mistaken about its philosophical pedigree. I examine three suggested lines of influence: (a) the late scholastic conception of emanation; (b) early modern philosophy of mathematics; and (c) Descartes's notion of the causa sui . In each case, the evidence indicates that causation in Spinoza should be categorized in Aristotelian terms as efficient and not formal.