Spinoza Beyond Philosophy

Spinoza Beyond Philosophy PDF

Author: Beth Lord

Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

Published: 2015-04-08

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 0748656073

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This book of 10 engaging and original essays brings Spinoza outside the realm of academic philosophy, and presents him as a thinker who is relevant to contemporary problems and questions across a variety of disciplines.

Spinoza's Ethics

Spinoza's Ethics PDF

Author: Beth Lord

Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

Published: 2010-02-28

Total Pages: 192

ISBN-13: 0748634517

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Everything you need to know about Spinoza's Ethics in one volume.The Ethics presents a complete metaphysical, epistemological and ethical world-view that is immensely inspiring. However, it is also an extremely difficult text to read. This book takes readers through the text, stopping at the most perplexing passages to explain key terms, unfold arguments, offer concrete examples and raise questions for further thought. It is designed to be read alongside the Ethics, enabling students to think critically about Spinoza's views and build an understanding of his complex system.

Improvement of the Understanding, Ethics and Correspondence

Improvement of the Understanding, Ethics and Correspondence PDF

Author: Benedict de Spinoza

Publisher: Cosimo, Inc.

Published: 2006-06-01

Total Pages: 465

ISBN-13: 1596053372

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Most writers on the emotions and on human conduct... attribute human infirmities and fickleness, not to the power of nature in general, but to some mysterious flaw in the nature of man... -from Ethics Considered a rationalist in the ranks of Descartes and Leibniz, Benedict De Spinoza was so unorthodox in his philosophies that his writings, published in 1678 just after his death, were immediately banned in his homeland of Holland. The spreading influencing of his thinking could not be stopped, however, and Spinoza overarching contention-that human happiness could be achieved only through a reasoned understanding of the universe-remains provocative and significant today. This collection, translated from Latin by R.H.M. Elwes and published in 1901, brings together Spinoza's best known work, Ethics, in which he postulates that God and Nature constitute one deterministic system, a single divine machine, in which humans are a vital part; his treatise "On the Improvement of the Understanding," in which he discusses the very nature of the mind itself; and a selection of his correspondence that elucidates his reasoning. AUTHOR BIO: BENEDICT DE SPINOZA (1632-1677) was born in Amsterdam to a prosperous merchant family. He also wrote A Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect, which he never completed, and A Short Treatise on God, Man, and His Well-Being.

Spinoza and the Politics of Renaturalization

Spinoza and the Politics of Renaturalization PDF

Author: Hasana Sharp

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2021-02

Total Pages: 255

ISBN-13: 022679248X

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There have been many Spinozas over the centuries: atheist, romantic pantheist, great thinker of the multitude, advocate of the liberated individual, and rigorous rationalist. The common thread connecting all of these clashing perspectives is Spinoza’s naturalism, the idea that humanity is part of nature, not above it. In this sophisticated new interpretation of Spinoza’s iconoclastic philosophy, Hasana Sharp draws on his uncompromising naturalism to rethink human agency, ethics, and political practice. Sharp uses Spinoza to outline a practical wisdom of “renaturalization,” showing how ideas, actions, and institutions are never merely products of human intention or design, but outcomes of the complex relationships among natural forces beyond our control. This lack of a metaphysical or moral division between humanity and the rest of nature, Sharp contends, can provide the basis for an ethical and political practice free from the tendency to view ourselves as either gods or beasts. Sharp’s groundbreaking argument critically engages with important contemporary thinkers—including deep ecologists, feminists, and race and critical theorists—making Spinoza and the Politics of Renaturalization vital for a wide range of scholars.

True Freedom

True Freedom PDF

Author: Brent Adkins

Publisher: Lexington Books

Published: 2009-09-30

Total Pages: 114

ISBN-13: 073913941X

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True Freedom: Spinoza's Practical Philosophy is a straightforward presentation of Spinoza's philosophy focused on the issue of how one might live. The book is unique among recent Spinoza scholarship in the way in which it centers on the ethical component in Spinoza's work. In order to bring Spinoza's ethics to the fore, Brent Adkins begin with what he considers to be Spinoza's fundamental ethical insight: namely, that emotions are controlled by understanding them. Adkins reveals how the process of unfolding Spinoza's philosophy is always anchored in the very practical issue of living well. The significance of True Freedom lies in its understanding of Spinoza's ethics as an 'experimentalism' and its accessibility to a very wide audience. Despite the fact that Spinoza died over 300 years ago, his writings remain remarkably prescient for a wide variety of disciplines, from religion to neuroscience. The source of this prescience, however, comes from Spinoza's recasting ethical theory in terms of how we might live rather than in terms of how we should live. Freedom in every aspect of life from the personal to the political to the religious is dependent on a particular way of engaging with the world. This engagement takes the form of an experiment to see if what we engage with results in an increase or a decrease in our capacity to affect and be affected by the world. True freedom, for Spinoza, lies in increasing our capacities.

The Ethics

The Ethics PDF

Author: Benedict de Spinoza

Publisher:

Published: 2021-02-22

Total Pages: 104

ISBN-13:

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Ethics is a philosophical book written by Baruch Spinoza that best summarizes his work as a philosopher. The book is overtly ambitious as it strives to question and provide a definite thought on the universe and the significant aspects that shape it like God. The book is split into five categories that feed off each category to give a well-thought-out philosophy on God, nature, origin, humanity, emotions, servitude, intellect, and liberty. Spinoza writes that rational thought can be broken down into three different things; confidence in our knowledge, assurance that the universe is controlled by the law of rationality, and the voice of reason that acts as a guide. He further states that all it takes is the tiniest leap of faith and surrender to the idea that every action has a purpose. Only a degree of belief in the world can provide humans with enough motivation and drive to push beyond your limits. Despite the book being split into different sections to tackle different aspects, it follows a linear line that connects the entire thought as one singular unit. Spinoza argues that knowledge is discovered in three sequential stages. The lower stage knowledge is acquired through a sense of perception which holds little to no value because it lacks consistency and authenticity. The middle stage knowledge is discovered through scientific research. It's considered rational and adequate. They are also more dependable. The final stage of knowledge is based on scientific intuition. This stage solely depends on the complete mastery of the lower and middle stages. This last stage brings about transcendence. The idea that humans can see and understand beyond the known realms of this world. An individual that possesses this level of knowledge views everything in the universe as a singular unit and every single thing adds up to the outcome that supersedes every system set by mankind.

Spinoza

Spinoza PDF

Author: Gilles Deleuze

Publisher: City Lights Books

Published: 1988-04

Total Pages: 148

ISBN-13: 9780872862180

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Spinoza's theoretical philosophy is one of the most radical attempts to construct a pure ontology with a single infinite substance. This book, which presents Spinoza's main ideas in dictionary form, has as its subject the opposition between ethics and morality, and the link between ethical and ontological propositions. His ethics is an ethology, rather than a moral science. Attention has been drawn to Spinoza by deep ecologists such as Arne Naess, the Norwegian philosopher; and this reading of Spinoza by Deleuze lends itself to a radical ecological ethic. As Robert Hurley says in his introduction, "Deleuze opens us to the idea that the elements of the different individuals we compose may be nonhuman within us. One wonders, finally, whether Man might be defined as a territory, a set of boundaries, a limit on existence." Gilles Deleuze, known for his inquiries into desire, language, politics, and power, finds a kinship between Spinoza and Nietzsche. He writes, ""Spinoza did not believe in hope or even in courage; he believed only in joy and in vision . . . he more than any other gave me the feeling of a gust of air from behind each time I read him, of a witch's broom that he makes one mount. Gilles Deleuze was a professor of philosophy at the University of Paris at Vincennes. Robert Hurley is the translator of Michel Foucault's History of Sexuality.

Behind the Geometrical Method

Behind the Geometrical Method PDF

Author: Edwin Curley

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2020-06-16

Total Pages: 199

ISBN-13: 0691214263

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This book is the fruit of twenty-five years of study of Spinoza by the editor and translator of a new and widely acclaimed edition of Spinoza's collected works. Based on three lectures delivered at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1984, the work provides a useful focal point for continued discussion of the relationship between Descartes and Spinoza, while also serving as a readable and relatively brief but substantial introduction to the Ethics for students. Behind the Geometrical Method is actually two books in one. The first is Edwin Curley's text, which explains Spinoza's masterwork to readers who have little background in philosophy. This text will prove a boon to those who have tried to read the Ethics, but have been baffled by the geometrical style in which it is written. Here Professor Curley undertakes to show how the central claims of the Ethics arose out of critical reflection on the philosophies of Spinoza's two great predecessors, Descartes and Hobbes. The second book, whose argument is conducted in the notes to the text, attempts to support further the often controversial interpretations offered in the text and to carry on a dialogue with recent commentators on Spinoza. The author aligns himself with those who interpret Spinoza naturalistically and materialistically.

Persistence through Time in Spinoza

Persistence through Time in Spinoza PDF

Author: Jason Waller

Publisher: Lexington Books

Published: 2012-08-31

Total Pages: 137

ISBN-13: 0739170031

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This book concerns the nature of time and ordinary cases of persistence in Spinoza. The author argues for three major interpretive claims. First, that Spinoza is committed to an eternalist theory of time whereby all things (whether they seem to be past, present, or future) are equally real. Second, that a mode’s conatus or essence is a self-maintaining activity (not an inertial force or disposition.) Third, that modes persist through time in Spinoza’s metaphysics by having temporal parts (that is, different parts at different times.) If the author is correct, then a significant reinterpretation of Spinoza’s modal metaphysics is required. The book also puts Spinoza into dialogue with some recent work in analytic metaphysics.