Indirect Parallelism in Spinoza

It is highly debated whether the concept of parallelism can be applied to Spinoza’s mind-body relation. One type of interpretation in favor of parallelism contends that there is a symmetrical one-to-one relation between the order and connection of modes of thought and modes of extension. Another, opposing, type of interpretation (proposed by Chantal Jaquet) suggests an asymmetrical relation between the two series of modes, suggesting that God’s self-expression across the attributes is not uniform despite their equality. However, the first interpretation fails to account for the problem of ideas of non-existent things, and the second does not constitute an impeccable counterargument against parallelism. Taking these two aspects into consideration, this paper offers a different interpretation and endorsement of parallelism with the help of the distinction between ontological parallelism and epistemological parallelism suggested by Deleuze. This solution is called indirect parallelism, which offers an understanding that guarantees the epistemological creativity of the human mind and shows the immanent dynamic which makes the discrepancy between body and mind in Spinoza’s philosophy possible.