The Problem of the Attribution of Eternity to Finite Modes in Spinoza

Abstract

The attribution of eternity to finite modes is one of the most difficult and controversial issues of Spinozism. In this article we aim to elucidate the obscure and polemical doctrine of the eternity of the mind, or more precisely of the human understanding. Our objective includes two purposes: on the one hand, we aim to investigate the reasons that determine Spinoza’s rejection of conceiving the eternity of the mind in the traditional terms of an immortality of the soul; and on the other, we aim to understand what it may mean that, when the body dies, something of the mind remains, as Spinoza affirms in E V, 23.