Spinoza’s Epistemology through a Geometrical Lens

Spinoza’s Epistemology through a Geometrical Lens PDF

Author: Matthew Homan

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2021-07-05

Total Pages: 265

ISBN-13: 3030767396

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This book interrogates the ontology of mathematical entities in Spinoza as a basis for addressing a wide range of interpretive issues in Spinoza’s epistemology—from his antiskepticism and philosophy of science to the nature and scope of reason and intuitive knowledge and the intellectual love of God. Going against recent trends in Spinoza scholarship, and drawing on various sources, including Spinoza’s engagements with optical theory and physics, Matthew Homan argues for a realist interpretation of geometrical figures in Spinoza; illustrates their role in a Spinozan hypothetico-deductive scientific method; and develops Spinoza’s mathematical examples to better illuminate the three kinds of knowledge. The result is a portrait of Spinoza’s epistemology as sanguine and distinctive yet at home in the new Cartesian and Galilean scientific-philosophical paradigm.

Spinoza's Epistemology Through a Geometrical Lens

Spinoza's Epistemology Through a Geometrical Lens PDF

Author: Matthew Homan

Publisher:

Published: 2021

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9783030767402

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"Spinoza's Epistemology through a Geometrical Lens is a thrilling and distinctive study of Spinoza's epistemology. It's also a major study of Spinoza's relationship to the unfolding scientific revolution. In particular, Homan reopens and deepens the debate over Spinoza's ambivalent relationship to mathematization of nature by the mathematical sciences. In so doing he offers an elegant re-reading of Spinoza as a systematic philosopher. Homan's book will be of great interest to Spinozists and scholars of early modern philosophy, historians of science, philosophers of mathematics and epistemologists, especially those interested in affective ways of knowing." -Eric Schliesser, Professor of Political Science, University of Amsterdam, Netherlands "Matthew Homan has convinced me to reconsider my frequent exhortation against reading Spinoza as a Cartesian. Homan peels back thick and complicated layers in Spinoza's understanding and use of mathematical properties and geometric figures in science to reveal deep insights and controversial interpretations of Spinoza's epistemology and important connections and even bridges to his metaphysical project. Spinoza's Epistemology through a Geometrical Lens contributes to and even redirects many important ongoing discussions in scholarship on Spinoza." -Christopher Martin, Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Toledo, USA This book interrogates the ontology of mathematical entities in Spinoza as a basis for addressing a wide range of interpretive issues in Spinoza's epistemology-from his antiskepticism and philosophy of science to the nature and scope of reason and intuitive knowledge and the intellectual love of God. Going against recent trends in Spinoza scholarship, and drawing on various sources, including Spinoza's engagements with optical theory and physics, Matthew Homan argues for a realist interpretation of geometrical figures in Spinoza; illustrates their role in a Spinozan hypothetico-deductive scientific method; and develops Spinoza's mathematical examples to better illuminate the three kinds of knowledge. The result is a portrait of Spinoza's epistemology as sanguine and distinctive yet at home in the new Cartesian and Galilean scientific-philosophical paradigm. Matthew Homan is Senior Lecturer of Philosophy at Christopher Newport University, USA.

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.

New Ethics Proved in Geometrical Order

New Ethics Proved in Geometrical Order PDF

Author: Rainer E. Zimmermann

Publisher: Isce Publishing

Published: 2010-11-01

Total Pages: 150

ISBN-13: 9780984216512

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The context within which Spinoza once developed his theory has clearly changed. However, most of Spinoza's general approach to conceptualizing the world can still be utilized, albeit with a slight change in terminology. Spinoza's approach has many advantages as compared with the approaches of his contemporaries, such as Descartes and Leibniz. Conceptualization today also requires taking fields such as physics and mathematics explicitly into account. This is very much in the sense of Spinoza's original intention that led him to speak in his main work of an ethics to be proved in geometrical order (which actually means: according to mathematical methods). This book is about a mathematical machinery which, is based on a strict logical structure, as well as on a not so strict hermeneutic structure - and is even representable in terms of algebraic expressions of a considerable symbolic quality. Eventually, this may be capable of shedding a completely new light on the ancient problem of the relationship between human beings and the rest of nature. As the book shows, the theory of evolutionary systems is a prime candidate for a conceptualization that might be useful in order to concretely develop this new insight.

Spinoza's 'Ethics'

Spinoza's 'Ethics' PDF

Author: Steven Nadler

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2006-05-25

Total Pages: 275

ISBN-13: 1139454315

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Spinoza's Ethics is one of the most remarkable, important, and difficult books in the history of philosophy: a treatise simultaneously on metaphysics, knowledge, philosophical psychology, moral philosophy, and political philosophy. It presents, in Spinoza's famous 'geometric method', his radical views on God, Nature, the human being, and happiness. In this wide-ranging 2006 introduction to the work, Steven Nadler explains the doctrines and arguments of the Ethics, and shows why Spinoza's endlessly fascinating ideas may have been so troubling to his contemporaries, as well as why they are still highly relevant today. He also examines the philosophical background to Spinoza's thought and the dialogues in which Spinoza was engaged - with his contemporaries (including Descartes and Hobbes), with ancient thinkers (especially the Stoics), and with his Jewish rationalist forebears. His book is written for the student reader but will also be of interest to specialists in early modern philosophy.

The Ethics

The Ethics PDF

Author: Benedict de Spinoza

Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform

Published: 2016-07-16

Total Pages: 160

ISBN-13: 9781535321679

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The Ethics - Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata - by Benedict de Spinoza - Translated from the Latin by R. H. M. Elwes. Ethics, Demonstrated in Geometrical Order (Latin: Ethica, ordine geometrico demonstrata), usually known as the Ethics, is a philosophical treatise written by Benedict de Spinoza. It was first published in 1677. The book is perhaps the most ambitious attempt to apply the method of Euclid in philosophy. Spinoza puts forward a small number of definitions and axioms from which he attempts to derive hundreds of propositions and corollaries, such as "When the Mind imagines its own lack of power, it is saddened by it," "A free man thinks of nothing less than of death," and "The human Mind cannot be absolutely destroyed with the Body, but something of it remains which is eternal." The Euclidean style is larded with stretches of informal and at times pugnacious prose. According to Spinoza, God is Nature and Nature is God. This is his Pantheism. In his previous book, Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, Spinoza discussed the inconsistencies that result when God is assumed to have human characteristics. In the third chapter of that book, he stated that the word "God" means the same as the word "Nature." He wrote: "Whether we say ... that all things happen according to the laws of nature, or are ordered by the decree and direction of God, we say the same thing." He later qualified this statement in his letter to Oldenburg by abjuring Materialism. Nature, to Spinoza, is a metaphysical Substance, not physical matter. In this posthumously published book Ethics, he equated God with nature by writing "God or Nature" four times. ..".[F]or Spinoza, God or Nature-being one and the same thing-just is the whole, infinite, eternal, necessarily existing, active system of the universe within which absolutely everything exists. This is the fundamental principle of the Ethics...."

The Explainability of Experience

The Explainability of Experience PDF

Author: Ursula Renz

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2018-07-02

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 0199350175

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This book reconstructs Spinoza's theory of the human mind against the backdrop of the twofold notion that subjective experience is explainable and that its successful explanation is of ethical relevance, because it makes us wiser, freer, and happier. Doing so, the book defends a realist rationalist interpretation of Spinoza's approach which does not entail commitment to an ontological reduction of subjective experience to mere intelligibility. In contrast to a long-standing tradition of Hegelian reading of Spinoza's Ethics, it thus defends the notion that the experience of finite subjects is fully real.

Ethic

Ethic PDF

Author: Benedictus De Spinoza

Publisher: Palala Press

Published: 2015-09-01

Total Pages: 348

ISBN-13: 9781341071515

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This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Infinity in Early Modern Philosophy

Infinity in Early Modern Philosophy PDF

Author: Ohad Nachtomy

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-08-31

Total Pages: 211

ISBN-13: 3319945564

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This volume contains essays that examine infinity in early modern philosophy. The essays not only consider the ways that key figures viewed the concept. They also detail how these different beliefs about infinity influenced major philosophical systems throughout the era. These domains include mathematics, metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, science, and theology. Coverage begins with an introduction that outlines the overall importance of infinity to early modern philosophy. It then moves from a general background of infinity (before early modern thought) up through Kant. Readers will learn about the place of infinity in the writings of key early modern thinkers. The contributors profile the work of Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, and Kant. Debates over infinity significantly influenced philosophical discussion regarding the human condition and the extent and limits of human knowledge. Questions about the infinity of space, for instance, helped lead to the introduction of a heliocentric solar system as well as the discovery of calculus. This volume offers readers an insightful look into all this and more. It provides a broad perspective that will help advance the present state of knowledge on this important but often overlooked topic.