Deleuze's Expressionism in Philosophy Ch 12 "Modal Essence: The Passage from Infinite to Finite," summarized

by Corry Shores
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Spinoza et le problème de l'expression

Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza

Ch.12

"L'Essence de mode : Passage de l'infini au fini"

"Modal Essence: The Passage from Infinite to Finite"

As eternal and infinite qualities, attributes are indivisible; hence even Extension, insofar as it is a substantial quality or attribute, is indivisible [See section XI of Gueroult's "Spinoza's Letter on the Infinite."] However, under certain conditions, each infinite quantity can be divided into parts, because attributes in one sense are "divided" into modes. But modes are not really distinct, rather they are just modally distinct. (173ab/191ab) [Citations give French version first, followed by English.]

But "part" takes on two senses:

1) Part of a power, "of intrinsic or intensive parts, true degrees, degrees of power or intensity" (de parties intrinsèques ou intensives, véritables degrés, degrés de puissance ou d'intensité) (173c/191c). Hence modal essences are defined as degrees of power. In this way, Spinoza follows the Scholastic tradition that equates modus intrinsecus = gradus = intensio. [See the Oresme entry for intensio represented as latitude of forms, an important articulation of intensity for Deleuze.]

2) Extensive parts, which are extrinsic parts that are "external to one another, and acting on one another from outside" (extérieures les unes aux autres, agissant du dehors les unes sur les autres) (193d/191d). Hence Spinoza's "simplest bodies" are the "ultimate extensive modal divisions of Extension." [see the end of Deleuze's Cours Vincennes 10/03/1981 for more on intrinsic and extrinsic relations of simple bodies.]

The modes of extension are defined by degrees of power; and even the attribute of Thought has extensive modal parts corresponding to the simplest bodies (174a/192a).

So to each attribute belongs two infinite quantities divisible under certain conditions:

1) The intensive quantity that divides into intensive parts

2) The extensive quantity that divides into extensive parts.

Deleuze then equates extensity and intensity with Spinoza's two types of infinities [distinguished in his "Letter on the Infinite"].

1) The infinity of intensities stems from their being indefinite: they cannot be equated with any number, although they can be conceived as greater or less. [see the beginning of Deleuze's Cours Vincennes 10/03/1981 for more on indefinite magnitudes.]

2) The infinity of extensities stems from their being caused by substance, which is infinite, so no matter how many times we divide extensities, there is always more to be divided. (174b.c/192b.c) [Again, see section XI of Gueroult's "Spinoza's Letter on the Infinite."]

Modal essences are physical realities, not logical possibilities, not even metaphysical entities. There are no non-existent modes, because it is necessary that all modes' essences exist. The modes themselves however have durations, so while their essences always have necessary physical reality, the modes themselves do not (174-175/192-193). This is contrary to Leibniz, who regards an essence or individual notion as a logical possibility with a "tendency to exist." However in Spinoza, non-existent essences are still contained in God's understanding as ideas (175b/193b). [See comparison with Leibniz towards the end of Deleuze's Cours Vincennes 10/03/1981 for more on modal essence as not possibility.]

Both modal essences and existing modes have God as their efficient cause. So Spinoza defines a mode's essence as not involving (n'enveloppe pas) its existence, and this is because the mode's essence does not contain within it the cause of the mode's existence. (175c/193c).

Although there is a distinction between the mode's essence and its existence, there is no real distinction between the existence of the mode's essence and the essence itself. We see this in Scotus: existence necessarily accompanies essence, but only because the essence is caused by something that is necessary (substance). So the essence's existence is not included or involved in essence (incluse ou enveloppée), rather it is added to it in such a way that it is not actually distinct from it, for instead the essence's existence is a determination of the essence, whose cause makes this determination. (176a/193-194)

For this reason, the essence's having an existence or physical reality goes hand-in-hand with God being the efficient cause of the essence, because the existence of the essence results from God causing it to be. Thus the essence's existence is no different from its being caused. (176b.c/194b)

Unlike Descartes' thinking, God does not cause possibilities for Spinoza, so it is only by abstractly considering modal essences as though divorced from their cause can we can think of them as possible. (176-177/194b.c)

Essences agree for two reasons:

1) They are all causes of one another in a complex web of causations.

2) All essences have a common cause: God.

Thus essences form a total system, an actually infinite whole.

C'est pourquoi les essences forment un système total, un ensemble actuellement infini. (177b/194c)

The question of how to distinguish essences brings us to the problem of individuality in Spinozism (177c/194-195).

Spinoza makes the matter more difficult by saying in the Short Treatise that when modes are not existing, their corresponding essences are indistinguishable from their proper attribute and from one another, hence they lack a principle of individuality. Thus individuation occurs only by means of the mode's existence. (177-178/195a.b)

However, we cannot conclude with certainty that in the Short Treatise Spinoza really means that there is no singularity and distinction of essences as such; for, he seems to mean that when modes do not exist, their essence is contained solely in their attribute, and because in that state they do not exist anywhere else, their ideas cannot represent them as being distinct from their attribute. Also, when a mode does not exist, the idea of its essence cannot be distinct, even if the essence can be, because like the totally white wall, nothing can be distinguished in it, even though there are still differences within it. (178a.b/195b.c)

So when something is contained in something else, as the modal essences in their attributes, in a way, they cannot be distinct from each other. Hence distinction in this sense is extrinsic distinction, which requires that one thing must be taken apart from something else (thus not be contained in it) in order for the two to be distinguished. (178c/195d)

But when a mode exists, it has duration, during which it is no longer simply contained in its attribute, so it is through their durations that existing modes obtain their extrinsic individuation (178-179/196a).

When the wall is white — and thus when we cannot make-out any shapes in it — the quality of the wall's whiteness is not affected by anything extrinsically distinct from it. However, there nonetheless can be another sort of modal distinction that presents an intrinsic principle of individuation. Deleuze also notes that the mode's existence alone is not enough to distinguish it; moreover, any extrinsic distinctions seem to presuppose prior intrinsic ones [because before one thing can be distinguished from another, it must have intrinsic properties for the comparison]. So modal essences should be singular in themselves, even if their corresponding mode does not exist, and their singularity must be intrinsic, [all because otherwise we would not be able to say that there are numerous modes to begin with.]

To explain how this is so, Deleuze returns to Duns Scotus, who holds that whiteness has various intensities that are not added to the whiteness as though they were separate things, like when we add a shape on the wall by inscribing it there. The whiteness' varying degrees of intensity are intrinsic determinations, that is, intrinsic modes, of this whiteness which itself remains self-same despite its various modalities. (179c/196c.d)

Similarly, for Spinoza modal essences are likewise intrinsic modes or intensive quantities. So attributes remain as the self-same qualities they are, while containing all those degrees that affect it modally without altering its "formal reason." (179d/196-197)

Modal essences are thus distinguished from their attribute as intensities of its quality, and from one another as different degrees of intensity.

les essences de modes se distinguent donc de l'attribut comme l'intensité de la qualité, et se distinguent entre elles comme les divers degrés d'intensité.

(179-180/197a)

Although Spinoza does not make this argument explicitly, we might still conclude that he considers here modal essences' distinct singularities; because the modal essences are distinguished in these cases intrinsically in terms of being different quantities of intensity. If the modes are to be qualitatively identified with absolute substance by means of their belonging to their proper attribute, then the only sort of distinction between modes would be a quantitative one, their being more or less of that attribute or quality, which is an essential difference of intensity. (180a.b/197a.b)

each finite being must be said to express the absolute, according to the intensive quantity that constitutes its essence, according, that is, to the degree of its power. Individuation is, in Spinoza, neither qualitative nor extrinsic, but quantitative and intrinsic, intensive.

chaque être fini doit être dit exprimer l'absolu, suivant la quantité intensive qui en constitue l'essence, c'est-à-dire suivant son degré de puissance. L'individuation chez Spinoza n'est ni qualitative ni extrinsèque, elle est quantitative-intrinsèque, intensive.

(180b/197b.c)

So because they differ in power, modal essences are distinct from one another intrinsically, and because each are singular degrees, they obtain a sort of intrinsic distinction from the attribute that contains them. (180bc/197c)

Intensive quantities are infinite in the sense that there is infinite series of differing degrees of intensity in an attribute or substantial quality. In this way, the attribute contains — better, complicates — all its modes' essences, because it contains them as its own infinite series of degrees of intensive quantities. (180c/197d)

In one sense, this intensive infinite is indivisible, because the only way we could possibly divide it is abstractly, but by doing so, we strip it of its physical reality (180d/197-198) [so if we draw lines around regions of generally-similar intensive values, as for example commonly shaded white areas of the wall, then we are considering them ideally or imaginatively, rather then in their fully physical and irreducible complexity]. Thus modal essences cannot be separated from each other, and for this reason we may characterize them as being in total agreement with each other [just as if we had a shade continuum from white to black, we might say the white and black agree with each other on account of the bridging continuum of shades of difference that brings them together on the same plane of intrinsic quality-differentiation]. Despite their agreement, however, modal essences nonetheless maintain their unique singularity and particularity by being intrinsically distinguishable from one another. Because they are together linked by a continua in their "concrete system"(système concret), essences are involved in each other's production [for each directly follows from another]. This is the case for all degrees of essences, because the series of essences/degrees is "actually infinite" (actuellement infinie) [for more on actual infinity, see Spinoza's 12th Letter and Gueroult's commentary, Deleuze's Cours Vincennes: 10/03/1981. and Deleuze's commentary on Spinoza's critique of Boyle's notion of divisibility]. And nonetheless, despite their continuity, each essence is an irreducible degree that we regard has a singular unity. "Such is the system of 'complication' of essences" (Tel est le système de la « complication » des essences). (180-181/197-198)

Spinoza's sense of particular essence is unlike Leibniz', because we are not to take them as microcosms, all contained within each other; rather for Spinoza, modal essences are all involved in each other's production. They are pars intensiva (intensive parts of the attribute itself) rather than pars totalis (whole in the parts). (181b/198b)

Modal essences have the expressive power to express the infinity of the absolutely infinite substance, although we see this involves the problem of the passage from the infinite to the finite. Substance, as the absolute ontological identity of all attributes or qualities, is thus indivisible; and likewise attributes, as substance's infinite forms or qualities, are also indivisible. Thus anything that is finite is neither substantial nor qualitative. But for Spinoza, finitude is no illusion, because the finite is modal and quantitative.

Each substantial quality has intensive modal quantity, itself infinite, which actually divides into an infinity of intrinsic modes. These intrinsic modes, contained together as a whole in an attribute, are the intensive parts of the attribute itself.

Chaque qualité substantielle a une quantité modale-intensive, elle-même infinie, qui se divise actuellement en une infinité de modes intrinsèques. Ces modes intrinsèques, contenus tous ensemble dans l'attribut, sont les parties intensives de l attribut lui-même.

(181d/198d)

And because they are parts of the attribute, intrinsic modes are parts of God's power: "their essence is itself part of God's power, is an intensive part, or a degree of that power" (leur essence même est une partie de la puissance de Dieu, c'est-à-dire un degré de puissance ou partie intensive) (181-182/199a). For this reason, modes are essentially expressive, because they express God's power in accordance with that degree of power constituting their essence.

The individuation of the finite does not proceed in Spinoza from genus to species or individual, from general to particular; it proceeds from an infinite quality to a corresponding quantity, which divides into irreducible intrinsic or intensive parts.

L'individuation du fini chez Spinoza ne va pas du genre ou de l'espèce à l'individu, du général ou particulier; elle va de la qualité infinie à la quantité correspondante, qui se divise en parties irréductibles, intrinsèques ou intensives. (182a/199a.b)

From:

Deleuze, Gilles. Spinoza et le problème de l'expression. Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit, 1968.

Deleuze, Gilles. Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza. Trans. Martin Joughin. New York: Zone Books, 1990.

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Deleuze's "Gueroult's General Method for Spinoza," summary

by Corry Shores
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"Gueroult's General Method for Spinoza."

Gueroult's original genetic-structural method "renewed the history of philosophy." He defined structure as the order of reasons, which are "the differential and generative elements of the corresponding system; they are genuine philosophemes that exist only in relation to one another" (146b).

Reasons are of two types: 1) simple reasons of an analytic order of knowledge, or 2) genuine reasons of a synthetic order of knowledge, through which the system's genesis is as well a genesis "of things through and in the system" (146c). These two systems are distinguished structurally, which is a more profound distinction than mere opposition: in analysis, synthesis' role is to determine the order of reason, and analysis leads immediately to giving reasons of being through a progressive synthesis (146-147).

Gueroult illustrated these orders' complication by comparing Fichte's method with Kant's analytical one. Fichte does not neglect the analytic method, but rather says that it works to suppress itself. Spinoza does not begin with a presynthesized notion of God, rather he begins with simpler ideas and moves synthetically toward God. We see he does this in the first eight or so propositions of the ethics, which are the focus of Gueroult's work (147b).

The order of reasons resides on the same plane of the system and is always overtly articulated. Structure is not hidden beneath what is said, because it is explicit and manifest. And yet, it often goes unnoticed, because structure is the fact of saying, and it becomes convoluted as we continue to say it (147c).

Seeing structure or the order of reasons is thus following the path along which the material is dissociated according to the demands of the order, and the ideas decomposed according to their generative differential elements, along which also the elements or reasons are organized into "series;" one must follow the chains to where independent series form a "nexus," the intersection of problems or solutions. (147c.d)

Gueroult proceeds thoroughly through each smallest partition of the Ethics so to 1) bring-out the structure of Spinoza's system, namely, its generative elements, their interrelations, and their proper series, 2) show why Spinoza's geometrical system was appropriate for his structure, and 3) account for each demonstration's various characteristics, such as position, reference, and accompaniments (149-148).

The historical development of the system's structure may be deduced from its states, so for example we may compare the structural state of the Ethics with that of the Short Treatise to see if they bear different structural features.

In general, a system evolves inasmuch as certain pieces change their position, in such a way that they cover a larger space than before, even while they more tightly control this space. (148c)

But yet a system may contain so many indeterminate points that several orders coexist within it (as Gueroult showed in Malebranche). Gueroult says that Spinoza's structure, like Fichte's, has "internal surges" that "determine new dissociations, displacements, and relations," which can be found where Spinoza discusses God's essence, proofs of His existence, and substance's and attribute's definitions (148d).

Because the Short Treatise is concerned with identifying God and Nature -- and hence also substance and attributes -- Spinoza valorizes Nature, because "God is defined as Being which presents only every attribute or substance, and a devalorization of substances or attributes, which are not yet self-caused but only self-conceived" (148-149). But on the other hand, because the Ethics aims to identify God with substance, Spinoza valorizes substance itself, taken to be made up of attributes or qualified substances, each of which is fully self-caused. Furthermore, Nature is displaced and thus not initially identified with God, which "aptly expresses the mutual immanence of created nature and creative nature" (149ab). We then can see that each text not so much presents a different structure as much as another state of the same structure.

In the first eight propositions, Spinoza demonstrates that for every attribute there is a unique, self-caused, and infinite qualified substance. Critics claimed that Spinoza first hypothesized that substance was unified before later treating it as ahypothetical. There are several reasons this problem is essential:

1) In Treatise on the Reform of the Intellect, Spinoza supports this position by claiming that we may begin with any true idea that may be "impregnated" with fiction so to arrive at the idea of God "where all fiction ceases."

2) A theoretical understanding of the first eight propositions requires we evaluate them practically. When we only regard them hypothetically, we obtain two misreadings of what Spinoza means by attribute:

a) in terms of the "Kantian illusion that makes attributes forms or concepts of the understanding," and

b) as the "neo-Platonic vertigo that makes attributes already degraded emanations or manifestation."

Although, we still wonder what aspects of these first eight propositions are provisional and conditioned. (149b.d)

Gueroult thinks that these first eight propositions must be categorical because they allow us to grasp how they confer to positive and apodictic properties to each qualified substance, especially their being self-caused. It is not hypothetical to claim that only attributes are distinct, for there is but one substance per attribute. We only mistakenly consider it so if we ignore the "real distinction" Spinoza makes. In fact, just as the number one is inadequate to substance, so too are 2, 3, 4 inadequate to attributes, argues Gueroult, on a account of Spinoza's devaluation of number in general, which does not adequately express the nature of a mode. (149-150b)

Saying that attributes are in reality distinct is tantamount to saying that each is conceived of itself, without negation or in opposition to another, and that they are all therefore affirmed of the same substance. ... The logic of real distinction is a logic of purely affirmative difference and without negation. (150b)

"Attributes constitute an irreducible multiplicity," in terms of multiple attributes and one substance.

Attributes are a formal or qualitative multiplicity, "a concrete plurality which, because it implies the intrinsic difference and reciprocal heterogeneity of the beings that comprise it, has nothing in common with the plurality of number literally understood.'" (150c, Deleuze quoting Gueroult, Spinoza 158)

For Gueroult, God is a motley: he is simple insofar as he is not composed of parts, but complex insofar as he is made up of prima elementa that are absolutely simple (150c).

"God is motley, but unfragmentable, constituted of heterogeneous but inseparable attributes. (150cd, Deleuze quoting Gueroult, Spinoza 447)

"Attributes are quiddities or substantial forms of absolutely one substance;" they are

1) irreducible constitutive elements of an ontologically singular substance,

2) multiple structural elements of substance's systematic unity, and

3) "differential elements of a substance that neither juxtaposes nor grounds them, but integrates them" (150d).

Thus Spinoza establishes the genealogy of substance in these first eight propositions. Although, the genealogy of substance is not the same as the genesis of modes, because the genealogy deals with a logical constitution of one same being's diverse realities, and the genesis deals with the physical composition one same reality's determinations or parts (150-151). And yet, we may speak of genesis and genealogy in the same sense, because a mode is generated immanently in the attributes on account of their being substance's genealogical elements. Out of this principle emerges "the methodological unity of Spinozism as a genetic philosophy" (151a).

Spinoza's genetic or constructive philosophy goes hand in hand with a synthetic method that determines attributes as genuine reasons of being. Because these reasons are constitutive elements, there is no ascension from attributes to substance;

the absolutely infinite substance contains no other reality than these attributive substances, although the absolutely infinite substance is their integration and not their sum (a sum would yet presuppose number and numerical distinction). (151b)

We come to the constitutive attribute-substances through a regressive analysis so that rather than their being genetically constructed, they are demonstrated from absurdity. But then afterwards, the attributes undergo a genetic construction that integrates the "analytic process and its self-suppression" (151c). So even though we begin from the ideas of the attributes, through the self-suppression of their analysis, we obtain reasons of being and not just those of knowledge. And thus the geometrical method overcomes fictional ideas and is adequate to construct the real. So what is hypothetical or provisional is not the eight propositions but rather substance's "analytic possibilities" to form separate substances (151d).

Through the construction of the unique substance, two series intersect and form a nexus: series one is the first eight propositions "through which we ascend to differential constitutive elements," series two are the 9th, 10th, and 11th propositions "through which the idea of God integrates these elements and makes clear it can be constituted only by all these elements together" (151-152a). It is for this reason that Spinoza claims we must "simultaneously" keep in mind the definition of God while reading the first eight propositions in order for them to have their impact. Spinoza does not want to deduce from the unity of constitutive substances the unicity of the constitutive substance. Rather,

he invokes the infinite power of an Ens realissimum, and its necessary unicity as substance, to draw a conclusion about the unity of the substances that constitute it without losing any of their previous properties. (152b)

The condition that allows substances to function together as a whole [God's infinite power] is really distinct from these actual structural elements themselves. They bear this real distinction, which is also what unifies them, hence it guarantees their "formal correspondence and ontological identity" (153bc).

We see the "nexus" between the two series in the role that the notion of self-cause plays in genesis. "Causa sui is first and foremost a property of each qualified substance" (152bc). But this leads to a vicious circle: causa sui grounds the infinite, while at the same time it derives itself from the infinite, because it is a property of each qualified substance. The circle is untangled when we take into consideration that causa sui "derives itself from infinitude as the full perfection of essence, but grounds infinitude as the absolute affirmation of existence;" [it follows from substance's essence that substance be self-caused, and self-causation grounds the infinite substance, because through the self-causation that creates substance and thereby posits it, substance not only has essence, but existence as well, so self-causation affirms substance's existence].

Likewise for God or "the unique substance: its existence is proved first by the infinity of its essence, then by self-causation as the genetic reason of the infinitude of existence, 'namely the infinitely infinite power of the Ens realissimum, by which this being, necessarily causing itself, absolute posits its existence in all its extension and plenitude, without limit or fault" (152c; Deleuze quoting Gueroult Spinoza 204, 191-193).

it follows that the genetic construction as a whole is inseparable from a deduction of its distinctive features, whose causa sui is paramount.

Substance causes itself by means of its essence, which defines substance as self-causing: this is the genesis of substance's essence. The genesis of substance itself, as thing or existence, comes about through knowledge that its essence causes it to be self-caused.

And what holds for the causa sui holds, in varying degrees, for all the other distinctive features: eternity, infinitude, indivisibility, unicity, etc., because these are nothing more than the causa sui itself from different points of view. (152d; Deleuze quoting Gueroult Spinoza 206)

There are two series of genesis. [Deleuze might mean these possibilities: essence and existence; substance and attributes. Because substance's existence is manifest and expressed through the attributes, and because substance itself is its essence, we might pair them together to obtain the series a) substance/essence, and b) existence/attributes]. The causa sui appears as the "nexus" of these two series, because it causes the attributes to be identical [because by causing itself, substance causes its existence, which means it causes its self-causality to be expressed in the absolutely independent attributes], the causal act

explains the unicity of a single substance existing of itself, despite the difference of its attributes as to its essence: the attributes are diverse and incommensurable realities, integrated into an indivisible being "only by the identity of the causal act through which they give themselves existence and produce their modes." (153a; Deleuze quoting Gueroult Spinoza 238, 447)

[As we noted, the causa sui, when taken from different points of view, is all of substance's distinctive features: eternity, infinitude, indivisibility, unicity, etc. As self-causing, causa sui is power]. However the causa sui's power is not entirely independent, and the distinctive features are not entirely autonomous in relation to substance's essence. And when we mistakenly think so, "we risk a misreading as we evaluate the intertwining notions" (153ab). Causa sui itself is a distinctive feature. When we instead consider it as belonging to the unique substance, it is because the unique substance's essence makes use of the self-causation of its attributes' essences. The power to self-cause is requisite for substance to be unique, but

it is not by virtue of power that the substance is unique, it is by virtue of its essence: "If by the unicity of power (i.e. the power of the attributes), we understand how it is possible that the attributes are one despite the diversity of their proper essences, the reason that grounds their union in one substance alone is nothing other than the infinite constitutive perfection of the essence of God." (153b; Deleuze quoting Gueroult Spinoza 379-380)

[So what makes God one is the perfection of His essence. The perfection of his essence brings it about that substance causes itself by positing itself in the infinity of attributes that express substance's infinity, which goes hand in hand with it being self-caused. Substance's self-causation is its power, which is expressed in the independence of the attributes. But because they all share substance's same self-causation, this power to cause itself is requisite for the attributes to be unified in one substance. However, substance's self-causation is a feature of it's essence; hence substance's essence it the reason that substance is unique].

so,

power is the inseparable distinctive feature of essence, and it expresses at once how the essence is the cause of the existence of substance and the cause of the other things that derive from it. (153c)

Thus the statement "power is nothing other than essence" has two meanings:

1) God has no other power than the power of his essence; he acts and produces only through his essence, and not through an understanding or a will: he is thus the cause of everything in the same sense that he is self-caused, since the notion of power expresses precisely the identity of the cause of every thing with the self-caused;

2) the products or effects of God are properties which derive from essence; they are thus modes, whose unity in the different attributes is in turn explained by the theme of power, that is, the identity of the causal act which posits the properties in each of the modes. (153c.d)

Because essence and power are so intertwined, we cannot take essences as models in a creative understanding [because essences are necessary and infinite], and power cannot be taken as a raw force in a creative will [because the self-causation is eternal, hence not created]. Understanding and will can only be modes (153-154). This devaluation of understanding allows it to take on an ambiguous meaning when we speak of the "understanding of God:" on the one hand, God's understanding would be utterly unlike that of finite creatures such as ourselves, so we could only grasp it analogically. However, by taking God's understanding as a mode, we take our understandings as being parts to it as a whole; but moreover, "we establish the adequation of all understanding to the forms which it includes, since modes envelope the perfections on which they depend in the same form as the perfections which constitute the essence of substance. Mode is an effect; but if the effect differs from the cause in essence and existence, it at least has in common with cause the forms that it envelopes only in its essence, whereas the forms constitute the essence of the substance" (154b).

[So even though modal thoughts are caused by substance and are hence really distinct from it, they also envelop the modal essences of which they are expressions, and these expressions are of the one substance; hence modal thoughts are both distinct from substance while being part of its unity].

Spinoza holds that human understanding may conceive the essence of God; this is the absolute rationalism of Spinozism (154c).

There would be no genetic and synthetic method if what is engendered were not in a way equal to what engenders (thus the modes are neither more nor less than substance). (154d)

Deleuze concludes by praising Gueroult's book for establishing "the genuinely scientific study of Spinozism" (155b).

From:

Deleuze, Gilles. "Gueroult's General Method for Spinoza." in Desert Islands and Other Texts 1953-1974. London: Semiotext(e), 2004.