Spinoza's metaphysical nihilism
Hello everyone,
It seems to me that many commentators do not appreciate the force of Spinoza's statements about the nature of ultimate reality. According to him, only God exists. God is the only substance. Substance is one, infinite and indivisible. All finite and divisible things are a product of the imagination, which means that plurality, finiteness and divisibility are all illusory. "Measure, time and number are nothing but modes of thinking, or rather of imagining" (Letter to Meyer, 1663).
It also means, paradoxically, that extension, when truly conceived by the intellect, is at once infinite AND indivisible AND identical with thought (and all the other infinite number of attributes of the one substance).
It also means, that the everyday world as perceived by the senses - including all the finite moods - is an illusion. Save for the one and only substance, Spinoza is a metaphysical nihilist.
It seems to me that many commentators do not appreciate the force of Spinoza's statements about the nature of ultimate reality. According to him, only God exists. God is the only substance. Substance is one, infinite and indivisible. All finite and divisible things are a product of the imagination, which means that plurality, finiteness and divisibility are all illusory. "Measure, time and number are nothing but modes of thinking, or rather of imagining" (Letter to Meyer, 1663).
It also means, paradoxically, that extension, when truly conceived by the intellect, is at once infinite AND indivisible AND identical with thought (and all the other infinite number of attributes of the one substance).
It also means, that the everyday world as perceived by the senses - including all the finite moods - is an illusion. Save for the one and only substance, Spinoza is a metaphysical nihilist.
Comments (57)
How does this infer nihilism?
There's nothing that says that the purported illusion doesn't have a purpose.
Let me add that for some reasons, Spinoza banishes all teleology and purposes from his ontology, so there could be no purpose of anything in it.
Space and time do not exist in Spinoza's ontology. Substance is aspatial and atemporal. Being infinite, it cannot have finite parts, and being indivisible, it cannot be measured.
For a different example, see his discussion of "water" in the Ethics (Part I, Note to Prop. XV).
What illusions imply are deception and deception is achieved through selective information i.e limited perception. For instance a bottle of vodka actually full of water; you won't know at first glance.
So, that in tow - how does 'exist' imply that illusions do not exist? Maybe you're implying they don't exist in the sense of being misleading from the whole picture, but then 'exist' wouldn't be the right word.
Quoting bobobor
That's a problem. If there is no space, where's the substance? That's considering that the substance itself comprises its own space or space of self.
If it's atemporal that could be in due to covering all timeframes, with the inability to shift between them; so it would be temporal but incapable of fluctuation.
What do you think?
Quoting bobobor
I'm not sure how he arrived at that conclusion, but it doesn't really follow.
Take it as you may, but even infinity is divisible and spells out 'in finity'.
'Only God is real' - but otherwise correct. Acosmism, not to be confused with the pantheism/pandeism (or panentheism/panendeism for that matter) S still gets dogmatically tagged with by academics despite Maimon & Hegel getting S profoundly right two centuries ago.
[quote=bobobor]It also means, that the everyday world as perceived by the senses - including all the finite moods - is an illusion.[/quote]
"The everyday world" (i.e. natura naturata) "is an illusion" only in the sense that it appears ontologically separate from, or independent of, the infinite and eternal Substance (i.e. natura naturans) to finite Modes like us.
[quote=bobobor]Save for the one and only substance, Spinoza is a metaphysical nihilist.[/quote]
I think 'metaphysical deflationist' (pace Hume et al) more precisely describes S and his dual-aspect, non-transcendent ontology because, while he argues that only Substance is real (i.e. consists in the essence of existence, that is, The Power to Cause Itself), he also argues that Attributes and their finite/infinite Modes are not real (i.e. consist only in essences lacking existence, or Without The Power to Cause Themselves) merely existing by virtue of being caused, or expressed, by Substance.
"The everyday world" - nature natured 'sub specie durationis' - is like a wave on the surface of the deep, or an effect, caused by the oceanic Substance - nature naturing 'sub specie aeternitatis'; illustrating, though this analogy is absurdly limited, the perdurance of ephemeral surface waves relative to the long lasting ocean (i.e. Modes of Attributes relative to Substance) and that thereby, however relatively ephemeral surface waves seem, they are not non-existent in the sense S conceives of the difference between existing and the real.
I don't agree.The "everyday world" is substance itself perceived in a confused and inadequate way through the senses. But, for Spinoza, even reason is a partially deficient kind of cognition which "regards a number of things at once". The highest kind of cognition is intellectual intuition. Please re-read the passage on water. "water" is a mass noun, but what Spinoza says here must equally apply to all count nouns as well. Water (and anything else denoted by a noun) IS (extension or) substance itself when conceived ("intuited") properly through the intellect.
Quoting 180 Proof
Several commentators want to interpret Spinoza as holding some "adjectival" theory of modes. I don't see how they can reconcile this with his statement that number (ie. plurality), time and measure only exist in the imagination - which implies that these are inadequate ideas, which Spinoza contrasts with the intellect's (adequate) conception of substance.
Please also note that Spinoza is a mereological nihilist as he demonstrates in Prop. XII. of Part I that a substance cannot be composed of parts. Therefore, if substance exists and cannot be composed of parts, no ordinary thing (mode) can be composed of parts either, because all modes are included in the attributes and attributes form the essence of substance. As the part-whole composition of ordinary things is illusory, it follows that they don't exist. QED.
Furthermore, please note that Spinoza writes about causation among finite modes, and the self-causation of the substance. Now, self-causation (causa sui) means that cause and effect coincide. Because in his system true causation is self-causation (this is what we have in our adequate idea of substance), it follows that all other types of causation are untrue, there is inadequacy in their ideas, and their relata do not exist. True causation means that the relata (cause and effect) are identical, which holds only of substance.
Quoting 180 Proof
Where does Spinoza make that distinction? Sorry, but I cannot find any textual evidence in support of the interpretation that he differentiates between existent and real things.
Quoting Shamshir
Maybe illusion is not the right word. When I say illusions do not exist, what I have in mind are illusory objects, in effect hallucinations (oasis in the desert). They do not exist by the common usage of the word "illusion" which implies that they are not "out there".
Quoting Shamshir
The question presupposes the existence of space, so it begs the question.
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=rovelli&i=stripbooks&crid=HNGAMPQKM3MV&sprefix=rovelli%2Caps%2C399&ref=nb_sb_ss_c_3_7
Assuming your interpretation all and any kinds of cognition and intellectual intuition would simply be emergent illusory phenomena like all the rest.
Following a tradition reaching back to Aristotle’s Categories, modes are said to exist in, or inhere in, a subject. Similarly, a subject is said to have or bear modes. Thus we might say that a door is the subject in which the mode of rectangularity inheres. One mode might exist in another mode (a color might have a particular hue, for example), but ultimately all modes exist in something which is not itself a mode, that is, in a substance. A substance, then, is an ultimate subject.
Independence and Priority
The new philosophers of the 17th century follow tradition in associating inherence with dependence. They all agree that the existence of a mode is dependent in a way that the existence of a substance is not. The idea is that modes, as the ways that things are, depend for their existence on that of which they are modes, e.g. there is no mode of ‘being 8’0 long’ without there being a subject that is 8’0 long. Put otherwise, the view is that the existence of a mode ultimately requires or presupposes the existence of a substance. This point is sometimes put by saying that substances, as subjects, are metaphysically prior to modes.
Degrees of Reality
In contrast to contemporary philosophers, most 17th century philosophers held that reality comes in degrees—that some things that exist are more or less real than other things that exist. At least part of what dictates a being’s reality, according to these philosophers, is the extent to which its existence is dependent on other things: the less dependent a thing is on other things for its existence, the more real it is. Given that there are only substances and modes, and that modes depend on substances for their existence, it follows that substances are the most real constituents of reality.'
Further down in the same article, we read:
'Spinoza concludes that substance “will be the cause of itself…it pertains to the nature of a substance to exist”. This is analogous, I think, to Aristotle's 'unmoved mover' or first principle, as in that which is self-begetting, not begotten by something else.
17th Century theories of substance, IETP
The notion of 'degrees of reality' is significant, I feel. It denotes 'ontological proximity to the first cause'. I would aver that there is no equivalent concept in modern philosophy, although happy to be proven incorrect.
:cool: I'm on my 3rd reading of Order of Time now.
[quote=tim wood]Or in sum, to read any thinker accurately requires first shedding or suspending or "bracketing" one's own preconceptions as much a possible, to take the writer on, on his own terms.[/quote]
I couldn't agree more. Well put.
[quote=bobobor]I don't agree.The "everyday world" is substance itself perceived in a confused and inadequate way through the senses.[/quote]
No. That's like saying 'tables & chairs, rainbows & kittens' are identical to the fundamental physical laws constitutive of them.
Only natura naturata, Modes like "the everyday world", appear to natura naturata, Modes like us, sub specie durationis which S distinguishes from Substance, or natura naturans sub specie aeternitatis.
[quote=bobobor]Where does Spinoza make that distinction? Sorry, but I cannot find any textual evidence in support of the interpretation that he differentiates between existent and real things.[/quote]
Where does S state he is, as we seem to agree, an "acosmist" rather than a "pantheist" (or vice versa)? C'mon, bob, (closely but charitably) read, interpret, extrapolate, reflect --
S makes the distinction sub specie aeternitatis between Natura Naturans (i.e. Substance) and Natura Naturata (i.e. Modes): the latter Non-Necessarily Exist - essences do not contain existence - and only are caused to exist only by the former which - its very essence contains existence - Necessarily Exists. Modes are 'unreal because they may or may not exist'; uniquely, however, Substance is Real because it cannot not (or be conceived of not to) exist. The Definitions & Axioms at the start of The Ethics Part 1 Of God stipulate this distinction which S promptly proceeds to elaborate on (i.e. demonstrate) methodically throughout the progression of Propositions, Scholia, etc that follow.
Is 'chapter & verse' really necessary?
Modes, according to Spinoza, are "God considered as affected". So it is all about "aspect-seeing", if you wish.
Let me return to the water example. Spinoza asserts several inconsistent propositions about water, each involving contradictory properties like "divisible-indivisible" "having separate parts - inseparable", "produced - not produced", "corrupted - incorruptible" and so on, according to the different aspects under which it is conceived - imagination (sense-perception) and intellectual intuition, respectively. To repeat, the very same water is seen as "a chunk of ordinary matter" (which is illusory) and "extended substance itself" (which is real). And it is very plausible to suppose that what Spinoza says about water must generalize to all physical entities, mass and count alike.
Unless you want to interpret him as someone who subscribed to dialetheism, you must resolve these contradictions. One property from the above opposing pairs must go - the question is, which one is to go? Clearly, the one that is conceived at a lower level of cognition, ie. sense-perception (imagination).
[Quoting 180 Proof
Your comparison seems to me unfair. I requested textual evidence for his distinction between reality and existence - you gave none. My label "acosmist" is just my rephrasing a sentence quoted from Spinoza, in which he says that "measure to determine quantity" does not exist outside the imagination it is only an "aid to the imagination", which means that nothing - not even space - can be measured. Immeasurable space - that would be a real contradiction, wouldn't it? So does the cosmos as we know it exist in Spinoza's ontology?
Quoting Janus
No. Intellectual intuition - the only non-illusory kind of cognition - can be said to be God's self-intuition. As you rightly pointed out, all the rest are illusory phenomena.
Does Spinoza say this? In the quote from the letter to Meyer Spinoza is not talking about things in the world but measure, duration, and how many. It does not follow that the things that measured and counted are products of the imagination.
From the letter to Meyer:
For Spinoza, who is a determinist, all phenomena are necessary manifestations of substance (God), so they cannot be illusions. So, phenomena are both necessary manifestations of substance and contingent upon substance. You might say they are real but not Real, although Spinoza does not use this language. he uses the terms natura naturata and natura naturans respectively to make the distinction between what we might call the necessary necessary and the contingent necessary.
A while back, fdrake made a helpful comment showing one way to understand the "infinite extension" component.
As a matter of causality, Spinoza is not defining anything that comes from something other than itself to be an illusion. Our existence depends upon not being so wrong about that sort of thing that our ignorance kills us. Humans have to frame the world as means to ends. Spinoza is telling his Christian brothers that they are anthropomorphising the Creator. In addition, he was exiled from his Jewish community for expressing such views. The approach amounts to starting with one's experiences as authentic information that other people want to fool with.
I am hard pressed to imagine something further removed from nihilism.
:up:
I would read it as 'necessary manifestations of being' It's also not exactly correct, but 'substance' is just too close to 'matter' in my reading.
I thought it was very good. I almost cited it in my response. As to degrees of reality, I think it is important for understanding the ontology of those who make use of it, but it is not a concept that I agree with.
How would I appreciate the "force" of it when it just seems arbitrary and nonsensical to me?
Unless you want to interpret him as someone who subscribed to dialetheism, you must resolve these contradictions.[/quote]
No, bobo, don't. I assumed you'd studied, not merely read/skimmed, The Ethics (at least the entirety of Part 1 Of God). My bad.
[quote=bobobor] Your comparison seems to me unfair.[/quote]
Of course it does.
[quote=bobobor] So does the cosmos as we know it exist in Spinoza's ontology?[/quote]
Yeah, "the cosmos" (i.e. Natura Naturata) exists (vide Einstein re: Spinoza) but only exists non-necessarily (i.e. contingently), that is, "the cosmos as we know it" can be conceived of not existing, and therefore, in Spinoza's sense sub specie aeternitatis, is unReal.
Well, I think it might help to make sense of the distinction between 'necessary' and 'contingent' being. The former exists necessarily, the latter as only derivative from the former. It allows us to say that the cosmos 'as we know it' exists, but is not real. Whereas the current philosophical lexicon rarely allows for this distinction.
Yes, I agree, but that is not a distinction I find helpful unless when reading those who make use of it. One must accept the notion of a necessary being.
Added: That is, one must accept the notion of a necessary being in order to make such distinctions. I do not.
No. All contingent existence is illusory. If you don't want to interpret Spinoza as contradicting himself, you must acknowledge this.
To see why, here is a challenge, an argument based on textual evidence. I use only three "premises", if you wish (although not in a strict logical form).
1) In Part I of Ethics, Spinoza explicitly asserts in its definition that a mode is "IN ANOTHER" ("By mode I understand the affections of a substance, or that which is in another through which it is also conceived.)
2) In the same definition, he also asserts that a mode is conceived through that "another" (so it depends on it notionally).
Thus, supposing that that "another" is substance (via its attributes), it means that all modes (if they
existed) 1. would be IN the substance 2. They would DEPEND on the substance notionally.
By notional dependence I mean that modes cannot be understood without understanding what the substance is (i.e. without understanding the attributes that form its essence).
3) BUT Spinoza must deny that modes inhere in the substance ("are in another") as parts in a whole. Why? Because, if they would, then substance would have parts. But Spinoza demonstrates that no substance can have finite parts. (Ethics, Part I, Prop XIII.)
Let me recap the main points: All Modes would be 1) "IN the substance", 2) would "DEPEND on the substance notionally" and yet they would 3) NOT be parts of the substance.
And here's the challenge: explain the following situation, preferably by giving an example of something (let us call it X) and another thing (let us call it Y) that meets all the three requirements below (of course, substituting "mode" for X and "substance" for Y would beg the question):
1) X is in Y.
2) X depends notionally on Y (X cannot be understood without reference to what Y is).
3) X is not a part of Y.
To me, this is sheer conceptual confusion. Yet, 1), 2) and 3) should be true of all finite modes if they existed. So you better admit that no finite modes exist, on pain of contradiction.
Spinoza's distinction between substance and modes is precisely understand all those three are true of all finite modes.
Finites modes (X) are of the singular unity substance (Y ).
Any finite mode, notionally, depends on Y (substance) because no finite modes occur outside its unity. (for there were modes outside substance, there would not be the unity which is of all modes). It's not because substance is some kind of being which is making the modes exists, but rather simply because anything which does exist is of the unity.
Finite modes are not part of substance at all. For that to be the case, substance would be rendered just another contingent being, present only on account of these specific modes. The unity of substance requires it be beyond any of its modes, since it is not given by any particular mode.
We can seen this in how an identification of substance gives no insight into which modes are present. If I mention how there is substance, I fail to describe anything about which finites modes exist. Similarly, if i mention there is a finite mode, I fail to speak about the unity of substance. If I describe Spinoza's Ethics exists on my shelf, I failed to identify substance.
No conceptual confusion, 1), 2) and 3) are all true of existing finite modes.
:up:
:cool:
Nice, I think that expresses the point exactly!
Quoting 180 Proof
Agree.
Quoting Janus
Quoting StreetlightX
So the substance is either "watering" (Janus) or "exists waterly" (StreetlightX). Apart from the blatant inconsistency of the two ways of expression (verbal or adverbial?), I wonder if you could support your interpretation by pointing to textual evidence where Spinoza says such fancy things.
X is dependent on Y, but it is not dependent simply notionally, it is dependent ontologically, without Y there would be no X. When he defines substance as "that which is in itself" he does not mean that it is contained in itself, but, as you say, it is not dependent on anything else. It follows that everything that is dependent on it is not what it is in itself but in light of or as a consequence of or dependent on something else.
Looking for examples must fail because there are no examples of Y. Anything that serves as an example must be an example of some X, that is, some dependent thing.
The adverbial is a function of the verbial, or in other words expresses the way something is in terms of its activities (as opposed to say, its parts or its qualities) so there is no inconsistency. Are you wanting to explicate what you think Spinoza actually thought and meant to convey, or what you, according to your own preconceptions, think are the logical entailments of what he said?
In any case you have provided no argument against what I said in my last response to you. To repeat it, what I said was that in your assertion that there is an inconsistency in Spinoza's thought, or that modes must be considered illusory, you are equivocating between what it is to be a part of something and what it is to be an activity of something. Are you claiming that if something is thought to have no parts, that it must therefore be thought to have no activities? If so I don't see how that would follow.
Yes. Exactly. If something has activities, it necessarily has temporal parts. Activities are events and as such they take place in a specific period of time. So It will have temporal parts "filled" with different activities.
Maybe you don't think it has, but it does nevertheless.
"According to present-day understanding of what is called the vacuum state or the quantum vacuum, it is "by no means a simple empty space".[1][2] According to quantum mechanics, the vacuum state is not truly empty but instead contains fleeting electromagnetic waves and particles that pop into and out of existence" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_state
So the quantum vacuum clearly have temporal parts insofar as it contains "fleeting" particles and particles "popping into and out of existence". These expressions refer to temporal intervals, no matter how tiny they are. And the vacuum is something that contains them, so, when conceived as an individual entity, it has temporal parts dated to these subatomic events.
Quoting Janus
My argument is that the concept of activity presupposes an actor (or an undergoer background, if you claim that subatomic events are "activities") that must have temporal parts or temporal slices. This is because all activities start and stop at specific times and therefore they occupy temporal intervals during which a temporal slice of the actor exists.
In any case you have offered no argument yet to support your assertion that an entity without parts cannot be active. I have not argued that the manifestations of its activity are not spatio-temporal, but that this fact gives no ground for claiming that that from which the manifestations emerge must be spatio-temporal.
If you claims that the modes of substance are illusory, then you would be claiming that spacio-temporalilty itself is illusory, but then there would be no activity at all. How would the total lack of activity produce the illusion of activity? Surely even the illusion of activity is activity, no?
The other point against your position is a dialectical one: the idea of illusion only gets its sense in contrast to the idea of the real. If nothing is real then the idea of illusion is meaningless.
I like that you are thinking about processes and the importance of time to them, but I don't like that you are leveraging a notion of time which you have not explicated, and a relation of time to events which you have not explicated. You have also not explicated how these themes relate to Spinoza's work through exegesis of his ideas. A greater interpretive weakness is that Spinoza frames discussions of physical time in terms of motion, extension and rest of bodies rather than an infinitely divisible time flow in which all bodies inhere as if they were separate from it. There's a hierarchy involved here.
Motion (and rest) are something bodies do, bodies are something extension does, extension is something substance does. The discussion of motion and rest comes after.
From The Ethics:
God consists in infinite attributes of which one is extension and extension is expressed determinately in bodies. Bodies cause other bodies to do stuff, substance causes itself which does all stuff.
An interesting line of inquiry for you might be how your idea of temporal parts relates to Spinoza's idea of duration.
By way of comparison:
Quoting fdrake
God however is a being, or being i.e. not an objective ‘substance’ but a knowing being, is he not?
There is no such thing as "quantum vacuum" because there cannot be states with zero energy. You mistake the subject of a thought-experiment for reality.
Quoting Janus
Quite contrary. this fact gives ample ground for claiming that the entity from which the manifestations emerge must be spatio-temporal. Your use of the word "emerge" is telling. You cannot say that these activities are caused, because ordinary causation is spatio-temporal. Instead, your choice of word "emerge" is close to "emanate", a verb with mystical overtones. There is absolutely no evidence for this kind of "emergence" or "emanation" (as distinct from causation) in our world. I seriously doubt that it is conceptually (logically) possible to have activities without actors, as their logical form must contain a placeholder for something that does the activity. And even if it is logically possible, it cannot be what Spinoza had in mind, because he says that water (or watering, waterly, etc.) IS substance under one aspect. So it does not "emerge" from substance, it IS substance itself, according to him.
To a first approximation, God = substance in Spinoza. Not some agent.
I am not claiming there is any such thing, or that there isn't, and I certainly didn't claim that it is spatio-temporal, as the snippet you quoted and responded to suggests. All I've been trying to address is what is logically entailed by the idea.
And I don't agree with you that idea of emergence in this context entails causality as we ordinarily understand it in an empirical context, because if it did that would dissolve the whole idea substance.
No one can know what is logically entailed by that idea because no one can know if it is logically coherent in the first place. If it is not -perhaps because the idea of anything that is physical logically entails the presence of some energy - who can say with certainty that it doesn't just because he seems to be able to imagine it without energy? - then anything can be entailed by it because of the ex falso quodlibet rule.
Quoting Janus
That is why I wrote that once you deprive emergence of causality, the remaining concept turns into a mystical one like that of emanation in the philosophy of Plotinus. Is this what you're claiming?
:up:
Amor Dei Intellectualis.
This is because Spinoza's God is deeply narcissistic. "God loves himself with an infinite intellectual love." (Ethics 5, P36.)
“It also means, paradoxically, that extension, when truly conceived by the intellect, is at once infinite AND indivisible AND identical with thought (and all the other infinite number of attributes of the one substance).” — This directly opposes the view of the author in question (I don’t know, where’d you get this from?); &, moreover, is the crux of where your problem lies, as well as the author’s, in defending his view.
(“The Ethics”, Part 2., Prop. VI, Proof.) “Each attribute is conceived through itself, without any other;” — So, you see, no two attributes, namely, thought & extension (the only two that Spinoza ever refers to [thereby, inadvertently, positing a latent dualism]), is or can be conceived by “the intellect” as being identical with one another, like you claim; indeed this directly contradicts Spinoza’s statements (specifically the one quoted above), in as much as each attribute is conceived through itself, i.e., is distinguishable from another, & therefore incapable of being the same as, identical with or identified by, any other, in thought or conception, i.e., in “the intellect.”
Understanding that, now, my thing is, what’s the relationship between the conception of an “attribute” or “attributes” to that of “substance”? If it’s simply claimed that the latter is in-itself or independent of the former, this would, then, render its conception (that of “substance”), speaking as logically as is possible, merely negative, empty & void; that is, if it’s only distinguished or defined as being in-itself & independent of any particular attribute’s conception, then no conception of it is ever formed but only as in a negative relation to attributes, i.e., it not being these & independent of them, thus, leaving one without any actual knowledge or conception of what it is which is independent of these or them (but just that “it” [“substance”] is so).
According to Spinoza substance has infinite attributes, and those attributes are necessary. But substance cannot be conceived through any one or even number of those attributes, and it is obviously not possible to conceive through all of them.
It does not follow that the relation to attributes is negative. What would a negative relation of something to an attribute even look like, except to say that it does not have it?
My point in the post of mine which you’ve quoted, is, that, merely stating that it “has” them, without explaining, how it has them? Or that they’re “in” it, without explaining, how they’re in it? Plus that it’s independent of them, i.e., not conceivable through them, provides no positive knowledge or information about the identity of that (“substance”) which has or is independent of these attributes. Our knowledge of it, in this way, is entirely negative; since it’s only known or recognized as being something that’s not any attribute, or, which is not dependent on any attribute.
Accordingly, you’ve asked what would a negative relation of something to an attribute look like? Nothing, it doesn’t have to look like anything, in as much as concepts are invisible, even if, they’re not imperceptible; & therefore the idea of it only involves the thought of the negation of certain distinguished attributes, without any image for it, as the idea of death only involves the thought of the negation of certain distinguished attributes, without any image for it. Correspondingly, as I’ve stated in the paragraph above, negative determinations provide no actual knowledge or information about identity apart from relatively distinguishing itself from the negated; & so are empty & void by definition.
For Spinoza, conceiving attributes is kind of seeing aspects of the same drawing. You can see a duck or a rabbit, where in reality there is only a single drawing out there. The duck or rabbit are interpretations, they have no real existence. The simile is not perfect, though, because attributes are conceived as expressing the essence of substance, whereas the duck and rabbit are not essences. This also shows that their distinctness from each other and from the substance itself is illusory, for the substance cannot have more than one essence.