...INTRODUCTION Baruch Spinoza was born a Jew in Amsterdam in 1632. His religious opinions caused his expulsion from the synagogue. He became associated with the Christian circle after his expulsion though he did not profess Christianity. His whole life was spent in Holland and Hague. He was always poor and withdrawn and he earned his living by polishing lenses. He was still young when he died in 1677. He was a rationalist, determinist and a pantheist. Spinoza’s philosophy was profoundly influenced by Descartes. His writings were mainly in Latin with few in Dutch. The most important of his works include the brief treatise of God, Man and his happiness, the tractacus theologico-politico, the cogitata metaphysica and, above all, his masterwork, published after his death: the ethica ordine geometric demonstrate. In our presentation, we will discuss his metaphysics and on his metaphysics we look at what is substance, substance-monism, God and the world, and communication between substances. We will look at his ethics and on his ethics we will consider his work on Man. We will discuss his epistemology and on his epistemology we will look at levels of knowledge. We will then proceed to criticize his philosophy and finally make our conclusion. METAPHYSICS Spinoza follows in the path established by Descartes. He adopts Descartes’ situation as his starting point. For Descartes, substance was understood as that which has need of nothing else in order to exist; strictly speaking, only God...
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...PHILOSOPHY ST GREGORY THE GREAT PROVINCIAL MAJOR SEMINARY NAME: EBENEZER MANAF TANOR COURSE: MODERN PHILOSOPHY INTRODUCTION Baruch Spinoza was born a Jew in Amsterdam in 1632. His religious opinions caused his expulsion from the synagogue. He became associated with the Christian circle after his expulsion though he did not profess Christianity. His whole life was spent in Holland and Hague. He was always poor and withdrawn and he earned his living by polishing lenses. He was still young when he died in 1677. He was a rationalist, determinist and a pantheist. Spinoza’s philosophy was profoundly influenced by Descartes. His writings were mainly in Latin with few in Dutch. The most important of his works include the brief treatise of God, Man and his happiness, the tractacus theologico-politico, the cogitata metaphysica and, above all, his masterwork, published after his death: the ethica ordine geometric demonstrate. In our presentation, we will discuss his metaphysics and on his metaphysics we look at what is substance, substance-monism, God and the world, and communication between substances. We will look at his ethics and on his ethics we will consider his work on Man. We will discuss his epistemology and on his epistemology we will look at levels of knowledge. We will then proceed to criticize his philosophy and finally make our conclusion. METAPHYSICS Spinoza follows in the path established by Descartes. He adopts Descartes’ situation as his starting point. For Descartes, substance...
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...PHI 014.5 4/23/13 What Ethic Has Taught Me This Semester In all of my years in college, I have never really enjoyed philosophy too much. That’s not to say anything against the professors who teach it, the subject itself, or the philosophers that create the subject-matter; it was just never something that sparked my interest. That is because philosophers are notorious for talking in circles and phrasing things in a much more complex way then what is required. But I now understand why they do this; to get people like me to think about what they are writing and not just blindly read the words as they are printed. If I have to go back and read the paragraph once, twice, or more, it forces me to really understand what the author is saying and really analyze why they are saying these things. This semester I have learned many things in this course that I can now take with me into all of my future endeavors. We have discussed and challenged some great thinkers this semester and I have taken much away from that. The first thing we learned this semester, while studying the works of Aristotle, was that there are three ways to understand happiness. These ways are pleasure (including wealth), fame, and being wise. Once that happiness has been achieved, you have reached the ultimate goal or ultimate end. To take that happiness from what Aristotle considers and opinion to an actual mental state, that happiness must contain three characteristics. Being self-sufficient is the first one....
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...Cuadro comparativo de las Teorías de la Libertad | Teoría | Principal(es) exponente(s) | Según esta teoría, ¿el hombre es libre? | Razones | Libre arbitrismo | Muchos a través de la historia, incluyendo a: Tomás de Aquino William James Erwin Schroedinger | Sí | Porque sus acciones dependen de él y proceden de él, no de causas externas. | Fatalismo | Aristóteles Juan Calvino Richard Taylor | No | Porque su conducta es controlada por factores trascendentes extraterrestres o sobrenaturales, y no puede evitar su destino. | Determinismo | Marco Aurelio Baruch Spinoza David Hume Friedrich Nietzche | No | Porque se halla determinado a obrar por causas inmanentes, terrestres, que la ciencia puede identificar. | Bergsonismo | Henri Bergson | No o Sí | Porque el hombre, tanto como individuo como en la historia, va progresando de actos automáticos a actos cada vez más libres, gracias a la "Evolución Creadora." | Existencialismo | Jean Paul Sartre | Sí. Tan es libre que es esclavo de su libertad. | Porque si quisiera ser "libre" de su libertad, encontraría que no puede. La conciencia de su libertad le puede traer dolor, pero aunque quiera escaparse de esa conciencia, sigue siendo libre. | Fenomenología | Edmund Husserl | SÍ, pero NO frente a un valor | Porque una vez que el hombre haya captado un valor, se encuentra determinado a realizarlo. | Materialismo dialéctico | Moisés Hess | No en esencia | Porque el hombre es en esencia un ser físico, pero mientras avanza...
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...Spinoza: Hero, Infidel, Celebrity Was Baruch Spinoza the first modern Jew? Despite many critics’ opinions that Baruch Spinoza is only relevant to modern Jewish history because he was born Jewish, his true significance is the fact that he is the father of modernity in Judaism. Spinoza was a 17th-century Jewish philosopher, who disaffiliated himself from Judaism, but did not convert. “Since the start of Jewish Enlightenment and the Emancipation in the late 18th century, when a Jewish identity outside Jewish law emerged as a possibility, Jews have increasingly claimed Spinoza as one of their own…and specifically as a precursor for an array of rival movements, ranging from Reform Judaism to secular Yiddishism to Labor Zionism” (Forward.com). After being excommunicated from Amsterdam, Spinoza did not in any way attempt to reconcile his differences with the Jews, or even consider himself Jewish; but at the same time, he did not convert to Christianity. Interestingly, many Jewish philosophers who originally did not admire Spinoza learned to respect him only after discovering a close connection between the two of them. Not until realizing this correlation did they notice that similarly to Spinoza, they too were at a point in their scholarly thought process that needed an outlet for a new identity. The Sephardic community in which he was brought up in had a meaningful history of beginning as Jewish conversos to openly practicing Judaism in one of the most successful communities at...
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...REALITY INTRODUCTION Spinoza’s political thought draws from a number of sources, both classical and modern. As one commentator puts it “Spinoza formed new conclusions from facts and concept borrowed from others”. It is worth briefly considering some of the sources of the facts and concepts that he inherits. At some point in the Mid-1650’s (around the time of his cherem, or excommunication) Spinoza began studying Latin with Francisus Van Den Enden. Van Den Enden was an ex–Jesuit and radical egalitarian with revolutionary tendencies. He was out to death in 1674 after Laring izech found guilty of conspiring to depose Louis XIV in order to establish a free republic in Normandy. Van Dan Enden was an anti–clerical democrat with appears to have profoundly influenced Spinoza. One commentators has gone so far as to call Van Dan Enden’s genius behind Spinoza, claiming that Van Den Enden’s writing contain a political theory which is in fact the same as the one worked out by Spinoza. Whether or not this assessment is fair, it is clear that Spinoza’s thinking was nourished through his association with Van Den Enden and the larger radical Cartesian circle in Amsterdam. How can we verify the real possibility of a constitutive praises? Spinoza adversaries (both on the protest anti side and on the catholic side) maintain that the political problem in Spinoza is central and that it’s the substance of the religious problem. Naturally, they have a negative opinion of this inversion. “ you refer...
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...Rationalism is a philosophical perspective and is any view appealing to intellectual and deductive reason, as opposed to sensory experience or any religious teachings as the source of knowledge or justification. Thus, it holds that some propositions are knowable by us by intuition alone, while others are knowable by being deduced through valid arguments from intuited propositions. It relies on the idea that reality has a rational structure in that all aspects of it can be grasped through mathematical and logical principles, and not simply through sensory experience. The most famous rationalists were Descartes and Spinoza. Empiricism is a philosophical perspective to counter the rationalism of the 17th century. Empiricists were philosophers who felt that everything in our mind comes from our experience through the senses. They heavily critiqued the rationalists. Locke, Berkeley and Hume were the most famous empiricists. Throughout this age, the Philosophers evolved all thinking of different ways of understanding our purpose in life and how we work along with various other explanations involving the world around them. Rene Descartes (1596 - 1650) was a French philosopher, mathematician, scientist and writer of the Age of Reason. He had a desire to achieve insight into the nature of man and the universe. He has been called the "Father of Modern Philosophy" and he was one of the most influential philosophers in modern philosophy and many believe he was very ahead of his time. Many...
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...problems (look at Kant “What is Enlightenment) • Provided new approaches to learning • Rationalism Two major schools of thought (at the time) • Inductive ◦ Roger Bacon • Deductive ◦ Rene Descartes 3 Age of Reason WH 2 Unit II Kinds of philosophies • Dualism ◦ Mind and Body are different ◦ Binary oppositions- Two fundamental principals for everything ▪ Not monism • Pantheism ◦ Promoted by Spinoza ▪ 'Deus sive Natura' (God or Nature) We are part of Nature as a whole whose order we follow... A substance cannot be produced from anything else : it will therefore be its own cause, that is, its essence necessarily involves existence, or existence appertains to the nature of it. (Spinoza, 1673) 4 Age of Reason WH 2 Unit II ▪ who also promoted the inferiority of women (see text or handout) • Empiricism ◦ I need to see it 5 Age of Reason WH 2 Unit II Major Philosophical Movements 1. Rationalism • Getting knowledge with thought primarily • Rene Descartes, Baruch Spinoza and Leibniz “I cannot forgive...
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...play starts off with the interrogation of Baruch De Spinoza; he was summoned to the Talmud Torah on Tuesday, July 27, 1656 in Amsterdam, Holland. One of the greatest thinkers for his time he was put on trial for his questionable thoughts on religions, his Jewish Orthodoxy and the idea that god is nature in itself. As Baruch De Spinoza, mentor and Chief Rabbi Saul Mortera along with Abraham van Valkenburgh believer of Christianity argue throughout the play the bibles interpretations through modern historical and critical methods between the Christian and Jewish beliefs, many of the people attending the interrogation start to believe in Baruch De Spinoza’s beliefs about religion and his views that the world, nature, and everything living could be god himself. The play concludes in Baruch De Spinoza being expelled from the synagogue for heretical thought and practice of the Jewish religion but even though he was expelled his mentor and Rabbi Saul Montera agreed with Baruch De Spinoza’s theoretical views but could not accept them for his own because he felt he could not change his beliefs after a lifetime of his teachings. The cast overall was great, the actors really put the feel of the plays time in your hands. The emotional and comical scenes were very well articulated and showed great enthusiasm working together and involving the audience. The actor Abdiel Vivancos in my opinion did an admirable job portraying Baruch De Spinoza. He’s enthusiasm and charisma really kept the play...
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...Problématiques clé | Thèses/auteurs | Concepts clé | Indubitabilité du savoir et suspension du jugement : peut-on douter de tout ? | « Descartes va élever au max le niveau de certitude requis en matière de connaissance scientifique. » (Descartes ; slide 4, 14.11.2014) | Tropes (scepticisme), raison de douter (Descartes) | | Montaigne | | | Spinoza | | Union du corps et de l’âme : comment comprendre la relation de l’âme et du corps ? | « Si j’étais suspendu dans les airs les yeux bandés, sans rien toucher, je ne pourrais pas savoir que j’ai un corps. Mais je voudrais savoir si c’est mon âme ou mon corps qui existe. Mon âme n’est pas un corps, mais quelque chose de différent. L’âme est une substance distincte du corps. » (Avicenne ; Buckingham, p. 77) | Dualisme | | « L’âme est rattachée au corps par l’entremise des sensations/sentiments » (Histoire de la philo, vol. 2)« L’âme et le corps, tout en étant distincts (ce sont deux substances radicalement différentes), sont en union étroite. (…) Les sentiments, façons confuses de penser, manifestent tous cette union. » (Descartes ; Russ, p. 198).« Vision mécaniste du monde : l’univers est composé d’un nombre infini de petites particules matérielles indivisibles, ayant des propriétés exclusivement quantitatives, qui se déplacent dans l’espace et ne se heurtaient que selon les lois de la mécanique, sans intention ni but. » (Descartes ; Skirbekk and Gilje, p. 297)« Descartes essaie de jouer sur les deux tableaux : la nature...
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...Descartes’ Revolution René Descartes was a philosopher that lived from 1596 to 1650. Many philosophers have spent their career trying to either prove that his theories were correct or they have tried to disprove his theories. He spent his time trying to understand knowledge and how humans know what they know with his method of inquiry. He sparked a revolution in philosophy that has remained the standard to this day. Descartes can be classified as a genius, while studying philosophy he realized that Aristotle way of thinking was wrong because he spent his entire life preoccupied with the question; what is reality? Aristotle was not able to fully answer this question and for the 1400 years after Aristotle everyone in Europe focused on; what is reality and what is the mind? Unfortunately over those 1400 years the only thing Europe had to show for these studies was the windmill, ox plow, Alchemy (which proved to not be possible) and the dark ages. When Descartes realized that Aristotle teachings were very flawed he developed his method of inquiry. While doubting Aristotle he was able to figure out that the mind and body are related. He believed that if the mind and body are combined, that is what gives human beings free will. When people stopped focusing on what the earth was they were able to focus on what they were and on ways to improve their lives. When working on improving one’s self it leads to innovation and new inventions. Descartes also focused on truth. ...
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...Of Thought | Key Contributors | Principal Issues | Epistemology | The theory of knowledge concerned with nature and scope of knowledge | From Ancient Greece forward, Plato, Socrates and developmental thought | Externalism, Internalism, Empiricism, Rationalism, Constructivism, Infinitism, Foundationalism, Coherentism, Skepticism | Aristotle, Plato, Spinoza, Locke, George Berkeley, Immanuel Kant. (with all the questions I think we can attribute some Socrates also) | Focused on the analysis of the nature of knowledge; how do we know what we know, why? How is knowledge acquired? What makes justified beliefs justified? | Metaphysics | Metaphysics is the study of the nature of reality, including the relationship between mind and body, substance, and accident, events, and causation (Johnson, 2008). | Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity is considered by many to be based in metaphysics but was adopted into physics because of its significance (Howie, 1997). | Cosmology, Ontology, Natural Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion, Mind, Perception | Aristotle, Plato, George Berkeley, Anne Conway, Oliva Sabuco de Nantes, Benedictus de Spinoza, Émilie du Châtelet, John Locke, Thomas Hobbes | The study of existence; Natural Theology – study of Gods, nature of religion, what is the divine? Universal Science - what are the first principals and how do they interact with being? | Moral | The philosophical study of moral judgments—value judgments about what is virtuous or base, just or unjust...
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...science about a soul." Until the second half of the nineteenth century, psychology was a part of philosophy and was used for explanation of certain philosophical hypothesis. In the past, there were philosophers who had a major influence on the later development of psychology such as Rene Descartes (1596-1650), Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) and John Locke (1632-1704). Rene Descartes is the most important representative of rationalism. His philosophical thoughts had a big influence on certain psychological branches, especially Gestalt psychology. According to Landrum, "Descartes suggested that whereas the mind is the source of ideas and thoughts (that he correctly located in the brain), the body is a machine-like structure to be studied and understood." Descartes acknowledged two substances: the soul and the body. On the other hand, Spinoza was an empiricist, and he advocated the standpoint that there is only one substance that is at the same time spiritual and material. This philosopher researched conflicts in human behavior. Therefore, he is considered as the antecedent of psychology of dynamics (a term later developed and established by Freud). Even though Spinoza and Descartes placed milestones for...
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...Religious Philosophers and Speculative Atheists Interpretations of Hume's philosophy of religion are often made against the background of more general interpretations of his philosophical intentions. From this perspective, it is not unusual to view Hume's views on religion in terms of the skepticism and naturalism that features prominently in his Treatise of Human Nature (1739-40), his first and most ambitious philosophical work. According to the account that is now widely accepted in the scholarly literature, Hume removed almost all the material in the Treatise that was concerned with religion because he was anxious to avoid causing any “offence” among the orthodox. In his later works, beginning with an Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748), Hume began to present his views on this subject in a more substantial and direct manner. This culminates in his Natural History of Religion (1757) and Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779; published posthumously) – both of which are entirely taken up with philosophical issues in religion. The linkage between these various works, on this account, is that the later writings on religion are simply an extension and application of the sceptical and naturalistic principles that Hume developed in his earlier writings. While it is certainly true that there is an intimate connection between Hume's scepticism and naturalism and his irreligious objectives and orientation, it is not evident that this relationship should be understood...
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...rejection of any authority except the mind, with all certainty built up from the new cogito, was revolutionary.”[Page 19]. This point of view was a crucial aspect of the Enlightenment philosophy. Descartes also said that in our religion we have an idea of God, that we have placed our own thoughts on the image of God. What were the main ideas that Spinoza developed? Spinoza saw religion as an obstruction to enlightenment and the bible as unnecessary “paper and ink” that was causing Christian’s to “worship likenesses and images”. He also saw God as identical with nature; he could not act with free will but only according to the laws of nature. Spinoza differentiated minds from bodies, but believed that like God was “inside nature” and followed the consistent laws of nature. “Enlightenment was the key—the use of reason to fulfill the injunction that Descartes had planted as the root for modern thought: Know thyself.” [Page 26]. Like Hobbes and Descartes, Spinoza believed in the use of reason for self-understanding. He also believed in reason’s ability to understand all things in nature as well as one’s relationship with God. Spinoza believed that a coercive rule could not be upheld and that the best rule was democracy. What were the main ideas that Locke developed? Locke built off of the idea of reason, expanding that reaching truth required experience—this involved education. He rejected innate ideas (such as right and wrong), and believed that every human was born with an equally...
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