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Spinoza

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Title: Spinoza


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2
Anonymous Timed Writing
  • Consider this statement
  • I am satisfied with the course so far.
  • 1. Strongly agree
  • 2. Agree
  • 3. Neutral
  • 4. Disagree
  • 5. Strongly disagree
  • Write the number and briefly explain what you
    like most and least about the course or any
    comments and suggestions you may have.

3
The Significance of Spinoza
  • The first modern philosopher?
  • Understanding the Emotions is central
  • The Ethics of Love is central

4
Background to Spinoza Descartes Philosophy
  • Spinoza will criticize
  • Cartesian dualism
  • View of God
  • View of humans
  • The nature of error
  • The understanding of emotions
  • On God and Nature see p. 167-68

5
Baruch (Benedict) Spinoza
  • 1632 b. Amsterdam
  • Rabbinical education
  • 1656 excommunicated for unorthodoxy
  • 1663 Descartes Principles of Philosophy
  • 1670 Theologico-Political Treatise
  • 1677 Death
  • 1678 Publication of Ethics

6
From the formal record of Spinozas
excommunication
  • Cursed be he by day and cursed be he by night
    cursed be he when he lies down, and cursed be he
    when he rises up cursed be he when he goes out,
    and cursed be he when he comes in. The Lord will
    not pardon him the anger and wrath of the Lord
    will rage against this man, and bring upon him
    all the curses which are written in the Book of
    the Law, and the Lord will destroy his name from
    under the Heavens.
  • From A. Wolf, ed., The Oldest Biography of
    Spinoza (London George Allen Unwin, 1927), 146.

7
Approaching the Ethics
  • To be a philosopher you must first be a
    Spinozist if you have no Spinozism, you have no
    philosophy. Hegel
  • Indisputable masterpiece J. Bennett
  • One of the major and most influential works in
    philosophy E. Curley
  • All things excellent are as difficult as they
    are rare. Spinoza

8
Why Demonstrated in Geometrical Order?
  • It is the nature of reason to perceive things
    under a certain species of eternity. e2p44c2
  • For the eyes of the mind, by which it sees and
    observes things, are demonstrations. e5p23s

9
Part One Concerning God (Metaphysics)
  • Central definitions (Part I)
  • Substance (Monism)
  • Attributes (Property-Dualism)
  • Modes (Pantheism)
  • Deus sive Natura (God, or in other words Nature)
    Nature is a unified whole, and we must grasp the
    nature of this whole before we can understand the
    parts.
  • Self-caused, existing, necessarily infinite,
    indivisible, extended (corporeal), immutable,
    infinitely powerful, without freedom of will,
    immanent cause
  • Which are most controversial?

10
Central Propositions
  • Prop. 5 In the universe there cannot be two or
    more substances of the same nature or attribute.
  • Why?
  • Because then nothing could possibly distinguish
    them.
  • Prop. 7 It belongs to the nature of substance to
    exist.

11
Ontological Proofs of Gods Existence
  • Prop. 11 God, or substance consisting of
    infinite attributes, each of which expresses
    eternal and infinite essence, necessarily exists.
  • Reductio ad absurdum (reduction to the
    absurdassume the opposite of what you want to
    prove and derive a contradiction or absurdity,
    thus proving the affirmative)
  • God doesnt exist.
  • Therefore his essence doesnt involve existence.
    (contra. Prop. 7)
  • Thus, God exists.

12
  • An a posteriori proof
  • Axiom to be able not to exist is a weakness to
    be able to exist is a power.
  • If what necessarily exists is only finite
    entities, then they are more powerful than an
    absolutely infinite entity, which is absurd.
  • Thus, since we exist, so must an absolutely
    infinite entity.
  • Prop. 14 There can be, or be conceived, no other
    substance but God.
  • A perfect substance possesses all attributes.
    (def. 6)
  • There cant be more than one substance possessing
    an attribute. (prop. 5)
  • Thus, only one perfect substance exists, since
    there are no attributes left over for another
    substance.

13
Determinism e1p25-33
  • Everything that happens is determined by two
    factorsthe standing nature of God (i.e. the laws
    of nature) and previous conditions likewise
    determined back through infinite time
  • Central propositions 25 29 33
  • A problem? Props. 23 28
  • Appendix on Human Prejudices Against the
    Doctrine of Final Causes, i.e., that Nature has
    an end (or that God has a will)this doctrine
    negates the perfection of God

14
Advantages of Determinism (E2p49sIV)
  • 1. Teaches us to act solely in accordance with
    the command of God and participate in divine
    nature
  • Also, calmness of mind and blessedness
  • 2. Proper attitude towards fortune
  • 3. Social life teaches us to hate no one,
    despise no onebe content and help our neighbors
  • 4. Society in general how citizens should be
    governednot as slaves, but as free men

15
Part Two On the Nature and Origin of the Mind
  • Philosophy of Mind, Theory of Knowledge
    (Epistemology), Philosophy of Science
  • What are the two known attributes of God?
  • Thought and Extension
  • Descartes and the Mind/Body Problem
  • Spinozas solution mind-body identity theory and
    psychophysical parallelism
  • The mind is just the idea of the body, i.e., a
    mode of thought that is identical with the body
    and has the body as its object.
  • Because each is causally self-contained, there is
    no question of bodily events causing mental ones
    or vice versa.

16
Part Two Central Propositions
  • Prop. 7 The order and connection of ideas is the
    same as the order and connection of things.
  • Prop. 11 The first thing that constitutes the
    actual being of the human mind is simply the idea
    of some particular thing which actually exists.
  • Corollary The human mind is part of the infinite
    intellect of God.
  • Prop. 13 the object of the idea constituting the
    human mind is the body, or, a certain actually
    existing mode of extension, and nothing else.

17
Epistemology
  • Criterion of truth an adequate idea Def. 4
  • Nature of Falsity (error, sin)
  • Prop. 35 Falsity consists in the privation of
    knowledge which inadequate, i.e. mutilated and
    confused, ideas involve.
  • Falsity is not a positive characteristic of
    ideas, but rather a kind of privation or
    mutilation. Because things must be understood
    through their causes, an idea of a thing that
    doesnt include knowledge of its cause is
    incomplete and partial.
  • Examples Humans are free. The sun is 200 feet
    away.

18
Three Kinds of Knowledge (E2p40s2)
  • First, Opinion or Imagination
  • Disorganized, confused knowledge from senses and
    experience. (Only source of falsity)
  • Second, Reason
  • Understand essential properties of things clearly
    and distinctly understand causal process and how
    things follow deductively.
  • Third, Intuition
  • To see self-evident truths without explicit
    conscious processes of reasoning.
  • An example A common property of proportionals 1,
    2, 3, ?
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