The First Parallelist Interpretations of Spinoza

This article traces the origin of the parallelist interpretation of Spinoza. Despite some awareness that this interpretation originated in the mid-19th century, so far it has not been determined who was the first to present it. Because the interpretation arose at the same time as the psychophysical movement in empirical psychology, there have been concerns that it misdescribes Spinoza’s theoretical views and aims by confusing them with those of the psychophysicists. Here, I show that the first parallelist interpretation of Spinoza was developed independently of the psychophysical movement, by the German philosopher Friedrich Adolf Trendelenburg. Trendelenburg’s reading is quickly taken up and adapted by other authors, such as Kuno Fischer and Frederick Pollock. I consider how this reading relates to Fechner’s psychophysics, showing that he responded to Trendelenburg. Thus, the evidence suggests that the historiographical concept of parallelism developed to some extent independently from psychophysics.