About Spinoza and His Work
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(1632 – 1677)
Benedict de Spinoza
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WHO WAS BENEDICT DE SPINOZA?
Heterodox religious thinker of the second half of the
seventeenth century Europe; an outcast Jew.
A post-Cartesian philosopher who got into trouble with
clerics.
After writing on philosophy, he died of TB, leaving some
writing unfinished, that were posthumous publications.
He gave a monistic metaphysics, in which God and Nature
are identical. God is no longer the transcendent creator of
the universe who rules it via providence.
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TREATISE ON THE CORRECT UNDERSTANDING
In this book Spinoza attempted to formulate a
philosophical method that would allow the
mind to form the clear and distinct ideas that
are necessary for perfection.
In addition, reflection upon various kinds of
knowledge, an extended treatment of
definition and an analysis of nature and causes
of doubt. This was the first book that he wrote.
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WAS SPINOZA A HUMANIST?
Spinoza adopted a naturalist position which
endorses the scientific examination of human
beings just like any other objects in nature.
Spinoza was a rationalist thinker.
Humanists affirm the existence of a metaphysical
and moral gulf between humanity and nature;
assign a special value to humanity.
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SPINOZA’S IDEA OF NATURE
Humility, poverty and chastity become the effects of an
especially rich and superabundant life, sufficiently
powerful to have conquered thought and subordinated
every other instinct to itself.
This was what Spinoza called nature; a life no longer
lived on the basis of need, in terms of means and
ends, but according to a production, a productivity, a
potency, in terms of causes and effects.
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SUBSTANCE,
Spinoza defines substance in terms of
ontological and conceptual independence.
Something is a substance just in case it is in
itself and is conceived through itself, Spinoza
says.
Here the in-itself condition signifies ontological
independence and the conceived-through-itself
condition, conceptual independence
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ATTRIBUTE,
Attribute is that which the intellect perceives of
substance as constituting its essence.
An attribute is not just any property of a substance – it
is its very essence.
So close is the association of an attribute and the
substance of which it is an attribute that Spinoza
denies that there is a real distinction between them.
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MODE, GOD
Mode: Modifications of a substance or, that which is in something else through which it is also conceived.
A mode is what exists in another and is conceived through another. Specifically, it exists as a modification or an affection of a substance and cannot be conceived apart from it.
God: A being absolutely infinite, that is, a Substance consisting of infinite attributes, each of which expresses eternal and infinite essence.
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HOW DOES SPINOZA CONCEIVE OF GOD AND MAN?
God is Nature itself;
Nature: an infinite, necessary, and fully
deterministic system of which humans are a part.
Humans find happiness only through a rational
understanding of this system and their place in it.
Spinoza wrote on God, Man, Mind, Emotions,
Power of the Intellect and human Freedom.
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GOD, THOUGHT, EXTENSION
Spinoza argues that any possible substance
has to exist by necessity, because nothing
external can prevent a possible substance from
existing.
Spinoza defines God as a substance that has
an infinity of attributes, each of which is infinite
in its own kind.
Thought and extension are attributes of God.
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DIVINE AND HUMAN LAWS AND SPINOZA
Spinoza: while human laws aim only at
prosperity and peace, divine laws aim at “the
true knowledge and love of God” (TTP 4.3/50).
For Spinoza, to know what we are depends on
knowing what the universe or God is, because
Spinoza sees us as limitations in God or the
universe. Our bodies have spatial limits and our
understanding has limits in thought.
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The core purpose of religion is to direct us to a life
that is guided by reason towards the perfection of
reason.
For the best and most blissful life is the life of
contemplation, culminating in knowledge of God.
God himself, is the perfect model of this life.
RELIGION AND REASON
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AFFLICATIONS, ENCUMERANCES
Being pure Reason, God eternally knows and enjoys the
truth, unencumbered by hunger, pain, ignorance, and other
afflictions that come with being embodied. The task of
religion is to make us as much like God as possible.
Classical theism, the idea that God is the creator of the
universe who remains ontologically distinct from it is
rejected by Spinoza. Nature is seen as a power that is one
and the same with divine power.
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THE ETHICS, ‘ON GOD’ AND ‘MAN’
(i) God necessarily exists;
(ii) God is the only possible substance;
(iii) everything follows from God by geometrical necessity.
A human being is generated by God’s beginning to think an object that we call the human body. Because of this, all human minds are parts of the infinite intellect of God. The nature of human beings as mind–body unions follows.
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Ultimate aim of the Ethics is to aid us in the
attainment of happiness, which is to be found in the
intellectual love of God. This love, according to
Spinoza, arises out of the knowledge that we gain
of the divine essence insofar as we see how the
essences of singular things follow of necessity from
it. Beginning with propositions concerning God, he
was able to employ it to show how all other things
can be derived from God.
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THEOLOGICAL-POLITICAL TREATISE
Completed and published anonymously in 1670.
Spinoza considered the primary threat to the freedom
of thought emanated from the clergy, whom he accused
of playing upon the fears and superstitions of people in
order to maintain power.
Spinoza sought the freedom to do philosophical work
unencumbered by the constraints of sectarianism.