Whether rabbinic authorities should remove the excommunication (cherem) of philosopher Benedict de Spinoza has been a matter of debate in recent years. Spinoza’s philosophical thought, however, ...demonstrates that this debate would not matter to him. His pantheism, developed in the Theological-Philosophical Treatise and the Ethics, will ever be a radical contestation of monotheism. Juxtaposing his philosophical views to the fictional narrative that existential psychologist Irvin D. Yalom offers, in his novel The Spinoza Problem, provides plausible psychological insight into Spinoza’s post-cherem identity in pursuit of authentic selfhood (‘authentic’ in Heidegger’s sense of ‘authenticity,’ Eigentlichkeit). Thereby, we can appreciate the enduring import of Spinoza’s radical enlightenment, the authentic choice of the identity he adopted, and his indefatigable commitment to the piety of reason, i.e., intellectual love of God (amor Dei intellectus).
This book offers a new and radical interpretation of the core of Spinoza's metaphysics. The first half of the book, which concentrates on the metaphysics of substance, suggests a new reading of ...Spinoza's key concepts of Substance and Mode, of Spinoza's pantheism and monism, and of his understanding of causation. The second half, addresses Spinoza's metaphysics of Thought, and presents three bold and interrelated theses on Spinoza's two doctrines of parallelism, the multifaceted structure of ideas, and Spinoza's reasons for holding that we cannot know any attributes of God, or Nature, other than Thought and Extension. Finally, the author shows that Spinoza assigns clear priority to the attribute of Thought without embracing reductive idealism.
Spinoza: variaciones sobre la cuestión democrática Tatián, Diego
Teología (Pontificia Universidad Católica Argentina Santa María de los Buenos Aires. Facultad de Teología),
08/2022, Letnik:
59, Številka:
138
Journal Article
El presente trabajo se centra en una interpretación de la metafísica de Spinoza como ontoteología propulsada por la tácita voluntad de lograr la felicidad del sujeto individual. Siguiendo la línea ...hermenéutica apuntada por Michel Henry en su primer estudio académico, tratamos de conducir la interpretación de la ontoteología spinoziana hasta una perspectiva en la cual el fin último de la afirmación del Absoluto es el deseo de garantizar la segura residencia del hombre en la totalidad del mundo objetivamente dado: la reconciliación entre la subjetividad finita y el cosmos.
Spinoza is a key figure in modern philosophy. Ethics is his most studied and well known work. Being both up-to-date and clear, this Guidebook is designed to lead the reader through this complex ...seminal text. Spinoza's Ethics introduces and assess: * Spinoza'a life, and its connection with his thought * The text of the Ethics * Spinoza's continuing relevence to contemporary philosophy
Till today Spinoza's Ethics is a standard for enlightened theoretical and practical reasoning. His five parts are elucidated by this collective commentary. An introduction sketches the historical ...consequences and the still relevant philosophical ambitions of the Ethics.
Spinoza’s Evanescent Self Särman, Sanja
Journal of modern philosophy,
02/2022, Letnik:
4, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Selfhood is a topic of great interest in early modern philosophy. In this essay, I will discuss Spinoza’s radical position on the topic of selfhood. Whereas for Descartes and Leibniz, there is a ...manifold of thinking substances, for Spinoza, there is, crucially only one: God (1p14; 2p1). Minds, for Spinoza, do not have substantial status, they are instead merely complexes of ideas (2p15), and thus complex modes of the one substance: God. Observations such as these often lead Spinoza’s readers to the conclusion that, whereas for Descartes as for Leibniz, human beings have robust or genuine selves, this is not so for Spinoza. However, this reductionist interpretation is also challenged—in recent times most intriguingly by Koistinen (2009). Koistinen has argued that there are, fundamentally, human selves of whom agency can be predicated in Spinozism. In this paper I discuss to what extent this is true. In section 1, I introduce the reductionist interpretation of selfhood in Spinoza’s thought. In section 2.1, I present and criticize Koistinen’s proposal. In section 2.2, I acknowledge the strength of Koistinen’s view that insofar as human beings act, they are God somehow. In section 3, I propose an alternative reading of human selfhood in terms of witnessing being acted out rather than in terms of being an agent. This view isprima facieparadoxical. In section 4, I nonetheless support it by highlighting that Spinoza seems to have seen practical benefits in knowing oneself to be acted out by God. I conclude the essay by pointing out some comparative directions for future research.
Demokratibegrebet er i de senere år blevet nytænkt på forskellig vis af teoretikere som eksempelvis Jacques Rancière (1999, 2005) og Chantal Mouffe (2000). Karakteristisk for først og fremmest ...Rancières arbejde med begrebet er, at han kombinerer radikal og original nytænkning af dets semantik med inspirationen fra klassisk filosofi, først og fremmest Platon. I Rancières perspektiv har Platon netop (i modsætning til moderne demokratiteori) forstået, at demokrati tværtimod at være en styreform er det anarki, ethvert styre søger at fortrænge – det er netop derfor, han er antidemokrat.
Det er naturligvis interessant, at man kan bruge Platon til at udvikle moderne demokratiteori, selv om han står som en af filosofihistoriens mest indædte antidemokrater. Så meget desto mere interessant er det, hvad de få klassiske filosoffer, der faktisk har tilsluttet sig demokratiet som styreform, har at lære os i dag. Det er det spørgsmål, der skal belyses i det følgende, hvor Spinoza og Rousseau er i centrum.
På trods af åbenlyse forskelle mellem deres forfatterskaber, deler de to det afgørende fællestræk, at de er de første betydende filosoffer i den vestlige tradition, der argumenterer for demokratiet som styreform. Det gør Spinoza i sin Teologisk-Politiske Traktat fra 1670, Rousseau i Samfundspagten fra 1762. Det er i sig selv tankevækkende, at vi skal så langt op i tiden, før vi finder tænkere, der åbent anbefaler en styreform, der i dag almindeligvis ligefrem er definerende for politisk legitimitet, men siden Platon i Staten brændemærkede folkestyret som tøjlesløst anarki, havde man i den politiske filosofi taget afstand fra det – og det i en sådan grad, at Spinoza og Rousseau endnu langt op i 1800-tallet stod alene med deres synspunkt.
På baggrund af dette fællestræk kan det ikke undre, at der er en lang tradition for at sammenligne de to forfatterskaber. Det er da også ubestrideligt, at de er enige om meget, i særdeleshed når det gælder spørgsmålet om netop demokratiet. Alligevel vil fokus i det følgende ikke først og fremmest være på det, Spinoza og Rousseau har til fælles, men derimod på forskellene mellem dem. Konkret skal der gennem en marxistisk inspireret analyse argumenteres for, at en sammenligning af demokratiforståelsen hos de to forfattere viser, hvordan Spinozas tilgang er væsentligt mere radikal end Rousseaus, og derfor også mere interessant, når det handler om at udfordre og udvikle moderne demokratiteori.
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