Abstract

James Thomas has made yet another valiant attempt to solve the problem in Spinoza of the relation between the infinite attributes of Substance, to which von Tschirnhausen drew attention in Eps. 64 and 65, and to which the answer offered by Spinoza in Ep. 66 seems unsatisfactory. Thomas sets out from an appreciative and fair summary of what I have written on the subject, and then offers an alternative interpretation of Ep. 66 which he says I do not consider. He claims that his interpretation is consistent with my reading of Spinoza as an absolute idealist. I am not sure in what sense he thinks I attribute absolute idealism to Spinoza, but that is a question peripheral to what I wish to discuss here; for whether it is relevant or not, I fear Thomas’s proffered interpretation of Ep. 66 will not serve to resolve Tschirnhausen’s difficulties.