Spinoza's Ethics: I.P9: Multiple Attributes

My translation is different than those of others, especially in my rendering of competunt as "coincide" rather than "belong." Further, the notions of realitatis or "reality" and esse or "being" have not been introduced thus far in Spinoza's work, so he leaves us no choice but to attempt to tease out the meaning from the sections discussing attributes: I.D4, I.P4 and I.P5.

In the discussion of I.D4, I raised the issue regarding the role of the intellect which, like attribute, was introduced for the first time. His involvement of the intellect was qualified by with tamquam or "as if."  It seems that this discussion of I.D4 prepares for I.P9. At first blush, reality does not seem to have any qualifier of "more" or "less" to it than a square can be any "more" or "less" than a square. Reality is just as a square is; it is. To introduce the notion of degrees of reality could seem as nonsensical as introducing notions of degrees of squareness. Yet in I.P9, he is doing so and it opens up a new potential understanding.

My notion of "reality" prior to a study of Spinoza ties more closely to Spinoza's notion of "substance." It's profound, as in his never introducing a notion that there are degrees of substance. But more to the point is that while one substance has the possibility for having more than one attribute of its own (as in I.D6), one attribute does not have the possibility of having more than one substance of its own (I.P5).

So here is a startling difference between substance and attribute, which is defined in I.D4 as "what the intellect perceives of a substance, as constituting its essence." Thus, the intellect, by its perceiving, is a "multiplier" (my term) - taking the one to one relationship between substance and its concept (I.D3) and moving it to a one to how ever many attributes the intellect is able to perceive as constituting its essence.

But this multiplier role with substance is very different than the multiplier role that the intellect has with modifications. As he stated, there are only substances and their modifications (I.P6.C), yet he moved further in I.P8.S2 to the ability that the intellect has to discern modifications which do not actually exist. In contrast to this, the intellect cannot conceive substance (and thus, attributes) unless it actually exists.

So here, he gets to the meaning that I have about "reality" meaning that it's not just something in my mind. It's real. However, it's nuanced by the sense that the intellect is involved and despite those inherent limitations, these limitations of the intellect do not create falsity with respect to substance and attributes. This is in contrast to the almost unlimited potential for falsity with respect to modifications.

Spinoza's allowance for multiple attributes raises the issue of the impact of varying degrees of attributes, as in, for example, a substance in which five attributes coincide versus a substance in which fifty attributes coincide. He's saying that there would be a difference, reminding me of the math class that introduced the notion of increased numbers of dimensions. 

Quo plus realitatis aut esse unaquaeque res habet eo plura attributa ipsi competunt.

Translated as,

In the way that every single thing has more reality or being, in that way more attributes coincide in itself.

Demonstratio: Patet ex definitione 4.

Translated as,

This is evident from D4.