Spinoza on Identity and Parallelism

Abstract

This paper focuses on the problems in the parallelist interpretation by appealing to the identity of the mind and the body. Della Rocca has claimed that Spinoza’s denial of the transparency of a causal context provides support for the identity interpretation of Spinoza’s mind-body theory. On the basis of this argument, Della Rocca attempts to find this identity in the concept of a neutral property based on Spinoza’s argument for parallelism. Della Rocca tries to explain how, given identity, we can keep the attributes as distinct as Spinoza claims. I considered whether Della Rocca’s concept of neutral property is compatible with Spinoza’s doctrine of identity between the mind and the body.