Name: TARCISIO DIEGO DA ROCHA
Publication date: 12/07/2024
Examining board:
Name |
Role |
|---|---|
| HOMERO SILVEIRA SANTIAGO | Examinador Externo |
| LUCIO VAZ DE OLIVEIRA | Presidente |
| ULYSSES PINHEIRO | Examinador Externo |
Summary: ABSTRACT
The core of this study is to investigate and debate the most significant requirements for
understanding the question of suicide in Spinoza’s philosophy. For him, suicide would be
impossible, and this thesis is based on one of his most basic ontological conceptions:
substance cannot cause its own non-existence. This point of view extends to finite modes,
which, although determined, are, unlike substance, not necessary. Under Spinoza’s strong
determinism, every entity in duration is endowed with a universally applied principle of self-
preservation. Therefore, there could be no internal principle of self-destruction, since all
destruction should stem from something out of the individual or thing. Thus, suicides would
be considered impractical. In this way, there is a strong conflict between this systematic
philosophy and observable experiences. The Dutch philosopher argues that an extended
individual is a composite of several other smaller individuals sustained by a structure, just as
the mind is a composite of several (related) ideas. Both the composite body and the composite
mind are inexorably determined. Spinoza rejects the thesis of free will and denies freedom to
the act of suicide, because, he says, the human being cannot be an empire within an empire.
However, in the course of Ethica, Spinoza himself seems to gradually soften his excessively
strong, deterministic theses from the Pars Prima forwards. Although he doesn’t explicitly
acknowledge it, in at least one of his explanatory models in E IV, prop. 20, esc., in which he
reports three cases of self-caused deaths, particularly in the case of Seneca, Spinoza tacitly
grants some freedom to the agent, since the suggested solution that Seneca was coerced by
mental representations to kill himself seems insufficient. We conclude that Spinoza’s
philosophy of action makes significant contributions to the discussion of suicide by rejecting
supernatural determinations and prejudices, replacing it by the axis of causal investigation of
natural causes, which, we suggest, may include intra-human causes. On the other hand, we
seek to challenge the theory, which we consider flawed, that no one can wish to die. We argue
that Spinoza’s error lies in the universality and unfailing character of the conatus and in the
conception of suicide as an impossible act. Suicide is considered by Spinoza to be a logical
chimera from the point of view of understanding, conceivable only through the same kind of
knowledge that leads us to imagine talking trees.
