Cathexis and meaning

[Dunamis]

illusio,

Thus, I would refrain any juridico-political sense of the “body” in Spinoza, in that terms, which is more akin to Hobbes, “Leviathan” as a meta-body.

I really don’t see the force of your “thus” (It seems a complete non sequitur). Could you please connect the above passages to the preclusion of a body politic. The perfection of the blind man, nor the illusion of free will of stone does not make political meta-bodies unSpinozian.

P2LemmaI:
Bodies are distinguished from one another in respect of motion and rest, quickness and slowness, and not in respect of substance.
P2LemmaII:
All bodies agree in certain respects.
P2LemmaIV:
If from a body or individual, compounded of several bodies, certain bodies be separated, and if, at the same time, an equal number of other bodies of the same nature take their place, the individual will preserve its nature as before, without any change in its actuality (forma).
P2Lemma V:
If the parts composing an individual become greater or less, but in such proportion, that they preserve the same mutual relations of motion and rest, the individual will still preserve its original nature, and its actuality will not be changed.
P2Lemma VII:
Furthermore, the individual thus compounded preserves its nature, whether it be, as a whole, in motion or at rest, whether it be moved in this or that direction; so long as each part retains its motion, and preserves its communication with other parts.

Not only do your quoted passages seem to fail to have any correspondence with political bodies, but neither do they imply “negotiation” as the preferred means of meta-body production. The above lemmas actual show that any consonance between bodies would produce individual meta-bodies with the suggestion of essences and a conatus of their own. There is no reason to preclude political bodies from these definitions, particularly considering Spinoza’s favor towards ideally a social-contract democratic liberal society. Since for Spinoza each idea in the mind is an idea of the body, the cathexis implied in meaning would make of any ideational consonance a bodily consonance as well.

The “juridico-political sense of the “body”” in Spinoza would come simply as a result of the process of assimilation implied by his theory of inadequate ideas. Ideas are inadequate in that they fuse the idea of an extended state within the body, “x”, with the idea of the extended state beyond the body “c” that has caused the extended state within “x”. When social bodies are formed and parts are in communication with each other the interior/exterior confusion (of the same parts) diminishes if not disappears altogether. Allowing states “x” and “c” to be reflected by the same meta-mind. This would support in some sense the idea that “the individual is insufficient”, or at least that inadequate ideas are inadequate only to the individual mind that has them.

Dunamis

[illusio]

Spinoza’s use of very plain words all along his Ethica, I think, is very strategic. The same word, “body” for example, in the flow of an argument can be charged with different powers. What I believe is to be patient while watching him constructing his concepts, if we really want to understand in exactly what sense he uses these words.

My reservation about ‘meta-body’ is likewise. If Spinoza has not used it, it is because he did not need it in his philosophy. He had everything he needed to make his argument.

Instead of ‘meta-bodies’, he always referred to “bodies” with lower or higher levels of complexity. That does not exclude anything political. Furthermore, his preference to stick with plain words and weaving them complex on the way, is what gives radicality to his thought: Ethics as metapolitics.

My emphasis on the theme of the “common” was not without reason. That is why I have mentioned above other “names” which are also “common” to us, which are the threads of possible alliances on our way without retreating to an identity based politics. “Names” are already “affects”, and yes, they are political, if not aesthetic:), by themselves and in their conjunctions:

Deleuze, Deleuze and Spinoza, Godard, Heraclitus and Spinoza, Godard and Deleuze…

Spinoza mentions about the “formal reality” of things. Formal reality is simply the reality something has in virtue of existing. Idea of God(Nature) has an infinite formal reality, where as ideas of substances have finite formal reality. Spinoza has a finite formal reality.

A bird is a bird. The idea of a bird has a finite formal reality. It sings, flies and dies and all not without its affects. From the viewpoint of Nature(God) there is nothing inadequate about bird’s not being able to fly to the moon.

The individual mails in this list, in their unique ways of expressing themselves are contributing to the elaboration of a matter which is “common” to us…And this process of elaboration is the form of the alliance itself. We are taking a common finite value (matter) to its ultimate possibilities…I think this is a Spinozian activity.

From this fact, if you want say that, if it weren’t for this mail group as a “meta-body” we wouldn’t be here…that, this group is your reason of existence…I would not agree, neither would Spinoza…We are here, there is our existence, this way or that way, discussing…and with that, we still don’t know what we are capable of…

“The day is coming when a single carrot freshly observed will set off a
revolution.” Cezanne.

[Dunamis]

Illusio,

My reservation about ‘meta-body’ is likewise. If Spinoza has not used it, it is because he did not need it in his philosophy. He had everything he needed to make his argument.

This is a slippery line of thinking: barring vocabulary not used, but implied by a thinker. The reason that the term meta-bodies does not appear in the Ethics is perhaps simply that he was focusing on the human body and the human mind, a meta-body/meta-mind he wanted to treat as one. Yet the application his axioms and definitions is not restricted to his particular project. The right, in fact obligation, to conclude beyond his scope of investigation actually seems implicit in the radicalness of his presentation. The absence of the term “meta-bodies” means nothing when he describes all individual bodies as other bodies in communication. The term “meta-body” allows the term “individual” to be understood as a Spinozian complexity and has bearing upon the adequacy of ideas of states of extension both within and without such a body/mind.

My emphasis on the theme of the “common” was not without reason. That is why I have mentioned above other “names” which are also “common” to us, which are the threads of possible alliances on our way without retreating to an identity based politics. “Names” are already “affects”, and yes, they are political, if not aesthetic:), by themselves and in their conjunctions:

Deleuze, Deleuze and Spinoza, Godard, Heraclitus and Spinoza, Godard and Deleuze…

Spinoza mentions about the “formal reality” of things. Formal reality is simply the reality something has in virtue of existing. Idea of God(Nature) has an infinite formal reality, where as ideas of substances have finite formal reality. Spinoza has a finite formal reality.

A bird is a bird. The idea of a bird has a finite formal reality. It sings, flies and dies and all not without its affects. From the viewpoint of Nature(God) there is nothing inadequate about bird’s not being able to fly to the moon.

The individual mails in this list, in their unique ways of expressing themselves are contributing to the elaboration of a matter which is “common” to us…And this process of elaboration is the form of the alliance itself. We are taking a common finite value (matter) to its ultimate possibilities…I think this is a Spinozian activity.

I actually have no idea what point you are making here. And what this has to do with the constitution of meta-bodies. I did not question your use of “common” as a concept [although it does pose some danger of being a bit Hobbesian in the notion of a negotiation of desires]. I just prefer the metaphors of “consonance”, “resonance” and “concert”, due to the cathexis implied by Spinozian meaning. If Spinoza tells us anything, the connection between names is a bodily one.

"By singular things I understand things that are finite and have a determinate existence. And if a number of Individuals so concur in one action that together they are all the cause of one effect, I consider them all, to that extent, as one singular thing” EP1d7

yet the idea of “commonness” is not what preserves them, rather the adequate conception:

“That which is common to all (Lemma II “agreement”), and which is equally in a part and in the whole, does not constitute the essence of any particular thing.” EP2p37

and

“Those things, which are common to all, and which are equally in a part and in the whole, cannot be conceived except adequately.” EP2p38

Dunamis