The Status of Individual Things in Spinoza’s Substance

The status of individual things in Substance raises a crucial problem for Spinoza’s philosophy. Spinoza interchangeably employs individua, singulares, and particula. For instance, 1p25c mentions res particulares, yet 2p1d, referring to 1p24c, mentions res singulares, as if there is no difference between particulares and singulares. Moreover, Spinoza refers to a body, which according to 2a5 is res singulares, as to Individuum (2L4 [following 2p13] and 2p27d), and Nature as a whole is also considered as Individuum (2L7s). As if paradoxically, that body and Nature as a whole are complex beings. This is acceptable in the Ethics since Spinoza states that as far as several individua “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 [ut unam rem singularem]” (2def7). Still, as we shall realize, singulares and particulares may have different meanings.