They are real properties which substance possesses even apart from an observer.

The attributes are more than mere modes of representation. There is a controversy as to what according to Spinoza is the exact relation between Substance and Attributes whether the attributes are merely what our understanding ascribes to the substance or do they possess any reality apart from the knowing subject?ĭoes Spinoza mean that the attributes really constitute the essence of substance, or does he mean that the substance is the abstract and indeterminate unity and attributes are ascribed to it by the human intellect?Īccording to Kuno Fischer and others, attributes belong to the essence of substance. Relation between Substance and Attributes : Spinoza is opposed both to Spiritualism and Materialism, one of which tries to explain matter in terms of mind and the other-mind in terms of matter. Corresponding to every mode of thought, there is a mode of extension. The attributes of substance are parallel to each other. There is no connection left, and no need for any. Thought and extension are not as with Descartes two distinct and opposed substances but two attributes of one and the same substance-two points of view from which the same substance may be apprehended. By his doctrine of attributes Spinoza tries to solve the problem of the relation of mind and matter which Descartes had failed to solve. God is absolutely infinite: the attributes only in their kind. Thought is infinite in ‘its own sphere, but it is not absolutely infinite, for it is limited by extension and other attributes. For it completely represents the nature of God from one particular point of view.

Essence of the gods mod