Friday, March 20, 2020

Spinoza's Ethics: I.A5: Interactivity

invicem means "in turn, alternately, mutually, reciprocally". It seems to come from vicis which means "change, interchange or alternation" and may the basis for the English words vicissitude and vice versa. Many translations do not capture this dynamic. Even though this is an axiom, Spinoza seems to describe a dynamic process, highlighting the word invicem twice. 

Up to this point, the axioms seem somewhat static. Here, Spinoza begins to introduce the dynamic of change and process. This touches on his use of the word exprimit or "express" that he first employs in I.D6.

Quae nihil commune cum se invicem habent, etiam per se invicem intelligi non possunt sive conceptus unius alterius conceptum non involvit.

Translated as,

Things which have nothing in common with one another interactively, also cannot be understood through themselves interactively where the concept of the one does not involve the concept of the other.

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