This is a curated selection of Spinoza quotes on free will (personally curated by me on my own lifelong learning journey). This page is intended as a learning resource for educational purposes and only meant to offer an overview/introduction. Short quotes aren’t a substitute for source material, so if this page sparks your interest, explore more deeply by checking out Spinoza’s books (Amazon).
Page Contents:
25 Spinoza Quotes on Free Will
Spinoza Quotes on Ignorance
“Human beings are mistaken in thinking they are free. This belief consists simply of their being conscious of their actions but ignorant of the causes by which they are determined.”
“As I have often said, they are certainly conscious of their actions and their appetites, but are ignorant of the causes which determine them to want something.”
“All human beings are born ignorant of the causes of things and all have an appetite to pursue what is useful for themselves and are conscious of the fact. For it follows from this, first, that human beings believe they are free because they are conscious of their own volitions and their own appetite, and never think, even in their dreams, about the causes which dispose them to want and to will, because they are ignorant of them.”
“People believe they are free merely because they are conscious of their actions but are ignorant of the causes by which they are determined.”
“To imagine something as free is no other than to imagine the thing simply, in ignorance of the causes by which it has been determined to act.”
“Those who do not know the true causes of things confuse everything.”
Spinoza Quotes on Free Will
“There is no absolute or free will in the mind; but the mind is determined to will this or that by a cause, which also is determined by another cause, and this in turn by another, and so on ad infinitum.”
“The mind is a specific and determinate mode of thinking. Therefore it cannot be the free cause of its own actions, or it cannot have an absolute faculty of willing and not willing, but must be determined to will either this thing or that thing by a cause, which also is determined by another cause, and this in turn by another, etc.”
“Any particular thing, or anything that is finite and has a determinate existence, cannot exist or be determined to operate, unless it is determined to exist and operate by another cause, which is also finite and has a determinate existence; and this cause in turn is also unable to exist or be determined to operate, unless it is determined to exist and to operate by another thing, which also is finite and has a determinate existence, and so ad infinitum.”
“Will, like intellect, is only a particular mode of thinking, and therefore no volition whatsoever can exist or be determined to operate unless it is determined by another cause and this in turn by another, and so on ad infinitum.”
“There is no volition, or affirmation and negation, in the mind, except that which an idea, insofar as it is an idea, involves.”
“There is no absolute faculty in the mind of willing and not willing but only particular volitions, i.e. this or that affirmation and this or that negation.”
“Will and intellect are nothing but the particular volitions and ideas themselves. But a particular volition and a particular idea are one and the same thing. Therefore will and intellect are one and the same thing.”
Spinoza Quotes on Necessity
“Human beings, like all other things, act from the necessity of nature.”
“A thing is said to be free if it exists solely by the necessity of its own nature, and is determined to action by itself alone. But a thing that is determined by another thing to exist and to operate in a specific and determinate way is necessary or rather compelled.”
“All things are determined by the necessity of the divine nature not only to exist but also to exist and operate in a specific way, and nothing is contingent.”
“The will cannot be called a free cause but only a necessary one.”
“Whichever way it is conceived, whether as finite or as infinite, it requires a cause which determines it to exist and to operate, and therefore it cannot be said to be a free cause but only a necessary or compelled cause.”
“The mind understands that all things are necessary and are determined to exist and operate by an infinite nexus of causes; and therefore it ensures to that extent that it is less acted on by the emotions arising from them and it is less affected toward them.”
Spinoza Quotes on God
“All things, I insist, are in God, and everything that happens, happens solely by the laws of God’s infinite nature and follows from the necessity of his essence.”
“All things have followed necessarily from God’s nature as it is, and have been determined by the necessity of God’s nature to exist and to operate in a specific way.”
“A thing which has been determined to operate in a specific way has been so determined necessarily by God; and a thing which has not been determined by God cannot determine itself to operate.”
“Whatever has been determined to exist and to operate has been so determined by God.”
“It depends only upon the decree and will of God that each thing is what it is.”
“The universal laws of nature, according to which all things exist and are determined, are only another name for the eternal decrees of God, which always involve eternal truth and necessity. So that to say that everything happens according to natural laws, and to say that everything is ordained by the decree and ordinance of God, is the same thing.”
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