Download or read book Spinoza on Learning to Live Together written by Susan James and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Philosophising, as Spinoza conceives it, is the project of learning to live joyfully. This in turn is a matter of learning to live together, and the most obvious test of philosophical insight is our capacity to sustain a harmonious way of life. Susan James defends this interpretation and explores Spinoza's influence on contemporary debates.
Download or read book The Ethics of Joy written by Andrew Youpa and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Andrew Youpa offers an original reading of Spinoza's moral philosophy, arguing it is fundamentally an ethics of joy. Unlike approaches to moral philosophy that center on praiseworthiness or blameworthiness, Youpa maintains that Spinoza's moral philosophy is about how to live lovingly and joyously. His reading expands to examinations of the centrality of education and friendship to Spinoza's moral framework, his theory of emotions, and the metaphysical foundation of his moral philosophy.
Download or read book Spinoza s Religion written by Clare Carlisle and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-09-07 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A bold reevaluation of Spinoza that reveals his powerful, inclusive vision of religion for the modern age Spinoza is widely regarded as either a God-forsaking atheist or a God-intoxicated pantheist, but Clare Carlisle says that he was neither. In Spinoza’s Religion, she sets out a bold interpretation of Spinoza through a lucid new reading of his masterpiece, the Ethics. Putting the question of religion centre-stage but refusing to convert Spinozism to Christianity, Carlisle reveals that “being in God” unites Spinoza’s metaphysics and ethics. Spinoza’s Religion unfolds a powerful, inclusive philosophical vision for the modern age—one that is grounded in a profound questioning of how to live a joyful, fully human life. Like Spinoza himself, the Ethics doesn’t fit into any ready-made religious category. But Carlisle shows how it wrestles with the question of religion in strikingly original ways, responding both critically and constructively to the diverse, broadly Christian context in which Spinoza lived and worked. Philosophy itself, as Spinoza practiced it, became a spiritual endeavor that expressed his devotion to a truthful, virtuous way of life. Offering startling new insights into Spinoza’s famously enigmatic ideas about eternal life and the intellectual love of God, Carlisle uncovers a Spinozist religion that integrates self-knowledge, desire, practice, and embodied ethical life to reach toward our “highest happiness”—to rest in God. Seen through Carlisle’s eyes, the Ethics prompts us to rethink not only Spinoza but also religion itself.
Download or read book Spinoza on Human Freedom written by Matthew J. Kisner and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2011-02-10 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Spinoza was one of the most influential figures of the Enlightenment, but his often obscure metaphysics makes it difficult to understand the ultimate message of his philosophy. Although he regarded freedom as the fundamental goal of his ethics and politics, his theory of freedom has not received sustained, comprehensive treatment. Spinoza holds that we attain freedom by governing ourselves according to practical principles, which express many of our deepest moral commitments. Matthew J. Kisner focuses on this theory and presents an alternative picture of the ethical project driving Spinoza's philosophical system. His study of the neglected practical philosophy provides an accessible and concrete picture of what it means to live as Spinoza's ethics envisioned.
Download or read book Passion and Action written by Susan James and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 1997-10-16 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Passion and Action explores the place of the emotions in seventeenth-century understandings of the body and mind, and the role they were held to play in reasoning and action. Interest in the passions pervaded all areas of philosophical enquiry, and was central to the theories of many major figures, including Hobbes, Descartes, Malebranche, Spinoza, Pascal, and Locke. Yet little attention has been paid to this topic in studies of early modern thought. Susan James surveys the inheritance of ancient and medieval doctrines about the passions, then shows how these were incorporated into new philosophical theories in the course of the seventeenth century. She examines the relation of the emotions to will, knowledge, understanding, desire, and power, offering fresh analyses and interpretations of a broad range of texts by little-known writers as well as canonical figures, and establishing that a full understanding of these authors must take account of their discussions of our affective life. Passion and Action also addresses current debates, particularly those within feminist philosophy, about the embodied character of thinking and the relation between emotion and knowledge. This ground-breaking study throws new light upon the shaping of our ideas about the mind, and provides a historical context for burgeoning contemporary investigations of the emotions.
Download or read book The Spinoza Problem written by Irvin D. Yalom and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2012-03-06 with total page 387 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A haunting portrait of Arthur Rosenberg, one of Nazism's chief architects, and his obsession with one of history's most influential Jewish thinkers In The Spinoza Problem, Irvin Yalom spins fact and fiction into an unforgettable psycho-philosophical drama. Yalom tells the story of the seventeenth-century thinker Baruch Spinoza, whose philosophy led to his own excommunication from the Jewish community, alongside that of the rise and fall of the Nazi ideologue Alfred Rosenberg, who two hundred years later during World War II ordered his task force to plunder Spinoza's ancient library in an effort to deal with the Nazis' "Spinoza Problem." Seamlessly alternating between Golden Age Amsterdam and Nazi Germany, Yalom investigates the inner lives of these two enigmatic men in a tale of influence and anxiety, the origins of good and evil, and the philosophy of freedom and the tyranny of terror.
Download or read book The God of Spinoza written by Richard Mason and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1999-07 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is the fullest study in English for many years on the role of God in Spinoza's philosophy. Spinoza has been called both a 'God-intoxicated man' and an atheist, both a pioneer of secular Judaism and a bitter critic of religion. He was born a Jew but chose to live outside any religious community. He was deeply engaged both in traditional Hebrew learning and in contemporary physical science. He identified God with nature or substance: a theme which runs through his work, enabling him to naturalise religion but - equally important - to divinise nature. He emerges not as a rationalist precursor of the Enlightenment but as a thinker of the highest importance in his own right, both in philosophy and in religion.
Download or read book Looking for Spinoza written by Antonio R. Damasio and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2003 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Publisher Description
Download or read book Betraying Spinoza written by Rebecca Goldstein and published by Schocken. This book was released on 2009-08-11 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Part of the Jewish Encounter series In 1656, Amsterdam’s Jewish community excommunicated Baruch Spinoza, and, at the age of twenty–three, he became the most famous heretic in Judaism. He was already germinating a secularist challenge to religion that would be as radical as it was original. He went on to produce one of the most ambitious systems in the history of Western philosophy, so ahead of its time that scientists today, from string theorists to neurobiologists, count themselves among Spinoza’s progeny. In Betraying Spinoza, Rebecca Goldstein sets out to rediscover the flesh-and-blood man often hidden beneath the veneer of rigorous rationality, and to crack the mystery of the breach between the philosopher and his Jewish past. Goldstein argues that the trauma of the Inquisition’ s persecution of its forced Jewish converts plays itself out in Spinoza’s philosophy. The excommunicated Spinoza, no less than his excommunicators, was responding to Europe’ s first experiment with racial anti-Semitism. Here is a Spinoza both hauntingly emblematic and deeply human, both heretic and hero—a surprisingly contemporary figure ripe for our own uncertain age.
Download or read book Think Least of Death written by Steven Nadler and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2022-05-10 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The seventeenth-century Dutch-Jewish philosopher Baruch Spinoza has long been known - and vilified - for his heretical view of God and for the radical determinism he sees governing the cosmos and human freedom. Only recently, however, has he begun to be considered seriously as a moral philosopher. In his philosophical masterpiece, the Ethics, after establishing some metaphysical and epistemological foundations, he turns to the "big questions" that so often move one to reflect on, and even change, the values that inform their life: What is truly good? What is happiness? What is the relationship between being a good or virtuous person and enjoying happiness and human flourishing? The guiding thread of the book, and the source of its title, is a claim that comes late in the Ethics: "The free person thinks least of all of death, and his wisdom is a meditation not on death but on life." The life of the free person, according to Spinoza, is one of joy, not sadness. He does what is "most important" in life and is not troubled by such harmful passions as hate, greed and envy. He treats others with benevolence, justice and charity. And, with his attention focused on the rewards of goodness, he enjoys the pleasures of this world, but in moderation. Nadler makes clear that these ethical precepts are not unrelated to Spinoza's metaphysical views. Rather, as Nadler shows, Spinoza's views on how to live are intimately connected to and require an understanding of his conception of human nature and its place in the cosmos, his account of values, and his conception of human happiness and flourishing. Written in an engaging style this book makes Spinoza's often forbiddingly technical philosophy accessible to contemporary readers interested in knowing more about Spinoza's views on morality, and who may even be looking to this famous "atheist", who so scandalized his early modern contemporaries, as a guide to the right way of living today"--
Download or read book A Study of Spinoza s Ethics written by Jonathan Bennett and published by CUP Archive. This book was released on 1984-07 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Spinoza s Ethics of Interpretation written by Jordan Nusbaum and published by Ethics International Press. This book was released on 2023-11-30 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines Spinoza's ontological argument and introduces the concept of "paradoxical singularity." It explores the ways in which Spinoza’s ontology establishes a framework in which singular things are, paradoxically, differentiated through intersecting causes. The book argues that Spinoza's ontological argument functions at once as a philosophical, religious, and political ethos in which interpretation is inseparable from cooperation. This emphasizes a connection between the productions of knowledge (interpretation) and the way of life (ethos) that those productions involve and express. Recommended for scholars interested in Spinoza's influence on post-structuralism, trans-individuality, and the history of secular religious thought.
Download or read book Spinoza s Ethics written by Beth Lord and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2010-02-28 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Spinoza Theological Political Treatise written by Jonathan Israel and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2007-05-03 with total page 451 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Spinoza's Theological-Political Treatise (1670) is one of the most important philosophical works of the early modern period. In it Spinoza discusses at length the historical circumstances of the composition and transmission of the Bible, demonstrating the fallibility of both its authors and its interpreters. He argues that free enquiry is not only consistent with the security and prosperity of a state but actually essential to them, and that such freedom flourishes best in a democratic and republican state in which individuals are left free while religious organizations are subordinated to the secular power. His Treatise has profoundly influenced the subsequent history of political thought, Enlightenment 'clandestine' or radical philosophy, Bible hermeneutics, and textual criticism more generally. It is presented here in a translation of great clarity and accuracy by Michael Silverthorne and Jonathan Israel, with a substantial historical and philosophical introduction by Jonathan Israel.
Download or read book The Cambridge Companion to Spinoza s Ethics written by Olli Koistinen and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2009-08-31 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since its publication in 1677, Spinoza's Ethics has fascinated philosophers, novelists, and scientists alike. It is undoubtedly one of the most exciting and contested works of Western philosophy. Written in an austere, geometrical fashion, the work teaches us how we should live, ending with an ethics in which the only thing good in itself is understanding. Spinoza argues that only that which hinders us from understanding is bad and shows that those endowed with a human mind should devote themselves, as much as they can, to a contemplative life. This Companion volume provides a detailed, accessible exposition of the Ethics. Written by an internationally known team of scholars, it is the first anthology to treat the whole of the Ethics and is written in an accessible style.
Download or read book Exploring Spinoza written by Howard Burton and published by Open Agenda Publishing. This book was released on 2021-04-07 with total page 43 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is based on an in-depth filmed conversation between Howard Burton and Susan James, Professor of Philosophy at Birbeck, University of London. Susan James is an internationally-renowned Spinoza scholar and author of Spinoza on Philosophy, Religion and Politics and Spinoza on Learning to Live Together which are discussed in detail during this wide-ranging conversation. After an inspiring story of how she became interested in philosophy, Susan James provides detailed insights into Spinoza’s ideas and their current relevance; the political environment and the theological struggle about who has control of religion and how much freedom of religion there is during Spinoza’s time. This carefully-edited book includes an introduction, The Rational Humanist, and questions for discussion at the end of each chapter: I. Philosophical Beginnings - Cambridge, with a bit of Princeton thrown in II. Setting the Stage - Spinoza: a vignette III. Spinozistic Separation - Religion, science and politics IV. Determinism - Howard gets stuck V. Modern Lessons - Mind, body, freedom and fortitudo VI. The Philosophical Life - Becoming philosophical and doing philosophy About Ideas Roadshow Conversations: This book is part of an expanding series of 100+ Ideas Roadshow conversations, each one presenting a wealth of candid insights from a leading expert through a focused yet informal setting to give non-specialists a uniquely accessible window into frontline research and scholarship that wouldn't otherwise be encountered through standard lectures and textbooks.
Download or read book The Courtier and the Heretic Leibniz Spinoza and the Fate of God in the Modern World written by Matthew Stewart and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2007-01-17 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Exhilarating…Stewart has achieved a near impossibility, creating a page-turner about jousting metaphysical ideas, casting thinkers as warriors." —Liesl Schillinger, New York Times Book Review Once upon a time, philosophy was a dangerous business—and for no one more so than for Baruch Spinoza, the seventeenth-century philosopher vilified by theologians and political authorities everywhere as “the atheist Jew.” As his inflammatory manuscripts circulated underground, Spinoza lived a humble existence in The Hague, grinding optical lenses to make ends meet. Meanwhile, in the glittering salons of Paris, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was climbing the ladder of courtly success. In between trips to the opera and groundbreaking work in mathematics, philosophy, and jurisprudence, he took every opportunity to denounce Spinoza, relishing his self-appointed role as “God’s attorney.” In this exquisitely written philosophical romance of attraction and repulsion, greed and virtue, religion and heresy, Matthew Stewart gives narrative form to an epic contest of ideas that shook the seventeenth century—and continues today.
