Spinoza and Other Philosophers

In the first section of this chapter, I offer an overview of a selected list of Scholastic debates intersecting Spinoza's Cogitata Metaphysica. I highlight how Spinoza consciously intervenes in them, showing a certain awareness of the intricacies of Scholastic discourse. In this first section, I emphasize Spinoza’s interest in three specific problems: the issue of the division of being into “real being” and “being of reason”; the eternity of God and its distinction from duration; and, finally, God’s omnipresence. My aim (...) is to show how Spinoza (at least in the CM) does not completely stray away from the path of the Scholastics. In the second section, I focus on one specific problem, very close to Spinoza’s heart: the issue of the distinction between God’s intellect and God’s will, which is intimately tied to the question of the intentionality of God’s creation. Spinoza’s answer to this problem, as I shall prove, is already fully formed in the CM and remains substantially unchanged in the Ethics, thus emphasizing the continuity between this early work and Spinoza’s more mature system. (shrink)

That Leibniz finds the philosophy of Spinoza horrifyingly wrong is obvious to anyone who reads Leibniz’s work; that Leibniz finds Spinozism so seductive that his own system is in danger of collapsing into it is less obvious but, I believe, equally true. The difference here is not so much between an exoteric and an esoteric philosophy suggested by Russell2 but between a thorough-going rationalism on the part of Spinoza and Leibniz’s “mitigated rationalism” – mitigated by the exigencies of his orthodox (...) Christianity. In other words, it is Leibniz’s traditional view of the nature of God and his creatures that leads him to abhor Spinoza’s vision, while his own commitment to a number of principles and ideas pushes him to rationalism. And if Kant is right that the mind naturally desires a system, then Leibniz ought to see the Spinozistic consequences of many of his philosophical principles. Of course, there is nothing new in saying that the God of Spinoza and the God of Leibniz are fundamentally different, but I believe that if we focus on Leibniz’s critique of Spinoza’s account of the nature of God and a constellation of related concepts, we can come to a deeper understanding of the thought of both philosophers. (shrink)

I argue that, against what is commonly believed, Spinoza’s use of the relation of constitution to characterize the relation between attributes and the essence of a substance does not indicate that, for him, there must be a numerical identity between each attribute and the essence constituted by that attribute. To do this, I follow a twofold strategy. First, I contend that the claim that because in Spinoza’s time constitution was understood as a one- to-one relation is mistaken: the main logicians (...) of Spinoza’s time, all Cartesian philosophers, believe that the constitution of an essence can be a many-to-one relation. I show that Spinoza can both accept that constitution is a many-one relation and share Descartes’ understanding of this relation. Second, I defend the claim that Spinoza’s use of constitution in the Ethics is consistent with these logicians’ account of constitution. In particular, I focus on Spinoza’s inclusion of the intellect in the definition of attribute and his definition of God. (shrink)

This essay pertains to Nietzsche's and Spinoza's philosophical/historical relationship, and the hitherto unnoticed role Kant plays as an intermediary for Spinoza's ideas and legacy. We advance two main assertions: 1) that Nietzsche is historically related to Spinoza via Kant's Antinomies of Pure Reason and their legacy, and 2) that both the striking similarities and tremendous differences between these two thinkers are best described with reference to the Antithesis positions of Kant's Antinomies. Our account rests primarily on the works of two (...) other scholars. The first is Omri Boehm, who argues convincingly that a) Spinoza was both the single greatest influence on and primary target of Kant's Antinomies, and b) that Spinoza's position is remarkably similar to the first three Antithesis positions (and no other relevant thinker comes close). The second is Michael Steven Green, who argues with equal force that c) Nietzsche's mature philosophy is heavily dependent upon Afrikan Spir's concept of the "fundamental antinomy," and d) that Nietzsche's view of empirical reality amounts to an "antithetic" view of reality. We demonstrate that these two scholars were, independently of one other, pointing to a single historical/philosophical connection between Nietzsche and Spinoza, and begin an exploration of the ramifications of this discovery. (shrink)

Spanish translation of Field, S. L. (2012). 'Democracy and the multitude: Spinoza against Negri'. Theoria: A Journal of Social and Political Theory, 59(131), 21-40. Translated by María Cecilia Padilla and Gonzalo Ricci Cernadas. Negri celebra una concepción de la democracia en la que los poderes concretos de los individuos humanos no se alienan sino que se agregan: una democracia de la multitud. Pero ¿cómo puede actuar la multitud sin alienar el poder de nadie? Para contestar esta dificultad, Negri explícitamente apela (...) a Spinoza. Sin embargo, en este trabajo, sostengo que la filosofía de Spinoza no respalda el proyecto de Negri. Por el contrario, argumento que la multitud spinozista evita la jerarquía interna por medio de la mediación de las instituciones políticas y no a pesar de ellas; de la misma manera, estas instituciones tampoco simplemente emanan de la multitud tal cual es, sino que estructuran, contienen y canalizan sus pasiones. En particular, las instituciones requeridas no son las de la democracia simple y directa. Puede ser que existan otros argumentos no spinozistas en los cuales Negri pueda basar su teoría, pero no puede defender legítimamente su concepción de la multitud democrática apelando a Spinoza. (shrink)

On 6 January 1795, the twenty-year-old Schelling—still a student at the Tübinger Stift—wrote to his friend and former roommate, Hegel: “Now I am working on an Ethics à la Spinoza. It is designed to establish the highest principles of all philosophy, in which theoretical and practical reason are united”. A month later, he announced in another letter to Hegel: “I have become a Spinozist! Don’t be astonished. You will soon hear how”. At this period in his philosophical development, Schelling had (...) been deeply under the spell of Fichte’s new philosophy and the Wissenschaftslehre. The text Schelling was writing at the time was the early Vom Ich als Prinzip der Philosophie, though his characterization of this text would much better fit the somewhat later work which is the focus of the current paper: Schelling’s 1801 Darstellung meines System der Philosophie (hereafter: Presentation). The Presentation is a text written more geometrico, following the style of Spinoza’s Ethics. While Spinoza’s influence and inspiration is stated explicitly and unmistakably in Schelling’s preface, the content of this composition might seem quite foreign to Spinoza’s philosophy, so much so, in fact, that Michael Vater—the astute translator and editor of the recent English translation of the text—has contended that “despite the formal similarities between Spinoza’s geometrical method and Schelling’s numbered mathematical-geometrical constructions, Schelling’s direct debts to Spinoza are few”. The Presentation is an extremely dense and difficult text, and while I agree that at first glance Schelling’s engagement with the concept of reason (Vernunft) and the identity formula ‘A=A’ seems to have little if anything to do with Spinoza (especially since Spinoza’s key terminology of ‘God’, ‘causa sui’, ‘substance’, ‘attribute’, and ‘mode’ is barely mentioned in the Presentation), I suspect that at a deeper level Schelling is attempting to transform Spinoza’s system by replacing God, Spinoza’s ultimate reality, with reason. Though this might at first seem bizarre, I believe it can be profitably motivated and explained upon further reflection. It is this transformation of Spinoza’s God into (the early) Schelling’s reason that is the primary subject of this study. I develop this paper in the following order. In the first part I provide a very brief overview of Schelling’s lifelong engagement with Spinoza’s philosophy, which will prepare us for my study of the 1801 Presentation. In the second part, I consider the formal structure and rhetoric of the Presentation against the background of Spinoza’s Ethics, and show how Schelling regularly imitates Spinoza’s tiniest rhetorical gestures. In the third and final part I turn to the opening of the Presentation, and argue that Schelling attempts there to distance himself from Fichte by developing a conception of reason as the absolute, or the identity of the subject and object, just as the thinking substance and the extended substance are identified in Spinoza’s God. (shrink)

Jean-Claude Milner’s Le sage trompeur (2013), a controversial recent piece of French Spinoza literature, remains regrettably understudied in the English-speaking world. Adopting Leo Strauss’ esoteric reading method, Milner alleges that Spinoza dissimulates his genuine analysis of the causes of the persecution and survival of the Jewish people within a brief “manifesto” found at the end of the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (TTP), Chapter 3. According to Milner, Spinoza holds that the Jewish people themselves are responsible for the hatred of the Jewish people, (...) and that the engine of their longevity is the hatred they engender. Additionally, claims Milner, Spinoza covertly insinuates that the solution to this persistent state of hatred consists in the mass apostasy of the Jewish people under the leadership of a Sabbatai Zevi-like figure. This article presents the Milner–Spinoza controversy to the English-speaking public along with the larger context of French-language scholarship on Spinoza’s relation to Judaism. While refuting Milner’s reading of Spinoza, I simultaneously clarify relevant elements of Spinoza’s discussions of Judaism in the TTP, such as Spinoza’s examination of Jewish identity and the nature of divine election, Spinoza’s understanding of the causes of national hatred, and Spinoza’s appeals to Portuguese, Spanish, Chinese, and Turkish political history. (shrink)

Early Modern German Philosophy (1690-1750) makes some of the key texts of early German thought available in English, in most cases for the first time. The translations range from texts by the most important figures of the period, including Christian Thomasius, Christian Wolff, Christian August Crusius, and Georg Friedrich Meier, as well as texts by consequential but less familiar thinkers such as Dorothea Christiane Erxleben, Theodor Ludwig Lau, Friedrich Wilhelm Stosch, and Joachim Lange. The topics covered range across a number (...) of areas of theoretical philosophy, including metaphysics (the immortality of the soul, materialism and its refutation, the pre-established harmony), epistemology (the principle of sufficient reason, the limits of reason with respect to matters of faith), and logic (the role of prejudices in cognition and the doctrine of truth). (shrink)

Spinoza’s substance monism constitutes the bedrock of Spinoza’s philosophy as put forth in the Ethics. As the record shows, it is not evident how we are to make sense of the details of the Spinozistic view. Difficulties in its interpretation include characterizing the relationship between substance and mode, assessing the validity of the argument for substance monism, and conceiving how there can be “inadequate” ideas if all ideas are in God. We risk distorting the study of seventeenth-century philosophy in saddling (...) seventeenth-century thinkers with alien, contemporary notions. Context matters. We need to ask how Spinoza’s own doctrine on substance is best characterized in a way that a seventeenth-century philosopher might find intelligible. From what perspectives can it be considered? And so as to not overlook genuine historical or contextual concerns, we ought also determine what were the precedents in accounts of substance on which Spinoza drew and from which Spinoza departed. In fact, as I maintain here, studying the reactions to Spinoza’s monism can shed light on ways it may be correctly (or incorrectly) construed. Resources for addressing the above-mentioned interpretative difficulties are yielded by an inquiry into the philosophical contexts underlying both the elaboration of the doctrine of substance monism as well as various prominent reactions to Spinoza’s monistic position, particularly in the English-language literature. Indeed, English-language Spinoza commentators have been overwhelmingly drawn to discuss Spinoza’s metaphysics, yet little research on the history of Spinozism in English has been undertaken. Hence, I begin with an inspection of the notion of substance in the Aristotelian context to which Spinoza is heir. This discussion is framed around a reading of Aristotle’s Categories and an assessment of Aristotle’s views on substance, along with a reconstruction of Descartes’ views on substance as put forth in the Meditations and the Principles of Philosophy. After then discussing Spinoza’s argument for monism, I analyze several interpretations of his first readers, such as François Lamy, before proposing a new historiography of Spinoza scholarship and reactions to Spinoza’s substance monism in the English-speaking world as found in the work of Coleridge and the British Idealists. I think it important to underline that a comprehensive investigation into the historic nature of the reception of Spinoza’s substance monism by philosophers and other interested parties would constitute a massive, sprawling, and likely endless undertaking. In contrast, my proposal is epistemically modest. I adopt a contextualist approach to the history of philosophy and apply this to Spinoza’s substance monism, where the ultimate objective is to show how exactly better-known twentieth-century English-language discussions of Spinoza’s theory of substance remain rooted in much earlier discussions of Spinoza’s views on substance and in the genealogy of the concept of substance. (shrink)

In the pre-history of the concept of recognition Spinoza’s social philosophy deserves a special place. Although we rarely think of Spinoza as a social philosopher, Spinoza understood well the ways in which individual subjectivity is shaped by the social forces. I will argue that Spinoza offers a mechanism to understand the way in which recognition works, in order to untangle the web of affect, desire and ideas, which support the recognitions and misrecognitions at the foundation of social life. Spinoza sets (...) out this mechanism in Book Three of the Ethics, but his extended example of the first Hebrew Kingdom in the Theological-Political Treatise, shows how he applied his theory of social recognition to the great problem of his times – the debate between faith and reason, and the need to unify a commonwealth. Social unity based on shared religion, for Spinoza, could be powerful, though not so powerful as democracy. Only through understanding Spinoza’s views of social subjectivization can we understand why. (shrink)

The pendulum clock was one of the most important metaphors for early modern philosophers. Christiaan Huygens (1629-1695) discovered his pendulum clock in 1656 based on the principle of isochronism discovered by Galileo (1564-1642). This paper aims at exploring the broad historical context of this invention, showing the role of some key figures such as Andreas Colvius (1594-1671), Elia Diodati (1576-1661), Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) and Constantijn Huygens, the father of Christiaan Huygens. Secondly, it suggests - based on this context - that (...) it is hard to believe that Huygens did not know about Galileo’s idea to construct a pendulum regulated clock. Finally, this article illustrates how the Dutch philosopher Spinoza (1632-1677) might have been inspired by Huygens’ discovery of the synchronization of the pendulum clocks in his views on the agreement between bodies in the universe. -/- Resumo: O relógio de pêndulo foi uma das metáforas mais importantes para os filósofos modernos. Christiaan Huygens (1629-1695) inventou o relógio de pêndulo em 1656 baseado no princípio do isocronismo descoberto por Galileo (1564-1642). Este artigo busca explorar o amplo contexto histórico dessa invenção, demonstrando o papel de algumas figuras-chave como Andreas Colvius (1594-1671), Elia Diodati (1576-1661), Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) e Constantijn Huygens, o pai de Christiaan Huygens. Em segundo lugar, sugere-se - baseado nesse contexto - que é difícil acreditar que Huygens não sabia da ideia de Galileo de construir um relógio regulado por um pêndulo. Por fim, este artigo ilustra como o filósofo holandês Espinosa (1632-1677) pode ter se inspirado nessa invenção de Huygens da sincronização do relógio de pêndulo em suas visões sobre o acordo entre os corpos no universo. -/- Palavras-chave: Galileo; Relógio de pêndulo; Huygens; República holandesa; Espinosa. -/- . (shrink)

In 1665, in a response to a question posed by Robert Boyle, Spinoza gave a definition of the coherence between bodies in the universe that seems to be inconsistent both with what he had written in a previous letter to Boyle (1661) and with what he would later write in his main work, the Ethics (1677). Specifically, Spinoza’s 1665 letter to Boyle asserts that bodies can adapt themselves to another body in a non-mechanistic way and absent the agency of an (...) external cause. This letter – Letter 32 – seems, therefore, to be in clear contradiction with the metaphysical determinism that is an important and characteristic element of his philosophy. This article suggests that the viewpoint expressed by Spinoza in Letter 32 may have been inspired by a spectacular discovery made by Christiaan Huygens a few months prior, namely, the self-synchronization of pendulum clocks. As I argue in this article, this new, hypothesized link to Huygens’ pendulum experiments may account for Spinoza’s otherwise paradoxical answer to Boyle in Letter 32. (shrink)

Until recently, Spinoza's standing in Anglophone studies of philosophy has been relatively low and has only seemed to confirm Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi's assessment of him as "a dead dog." However, an exuberant outburst of excellent scholarship on Spinoza has of late come to dominate work on early modern philosophy. This resurgence is due in no small part to the recent revival of metaphysics in contemporary philosophy and to the increased appreciation of Spinoza's role as an unorthodox, pivotal figure - indeed, (...) perhaps the pivotal figure - in the development of Enlightenment thinking. Spinoza's penetrating articulation of his extreme rationalism makes him a demanding philosopher who offers deep and prescient challenges to all subsequent, inevitably less radical approaches to philosophy. While the twenty-six essays in this volume - by many of the world's leading Spinoza specialists - grapple directly with Spinoza's most important arguments, these essays also seek to identify and explain Spinoza's debts to previous philosophy, his influence on later philosophers, and his significance for contemporary philosophy and for us. (shrink)

Baron d’Holbach was a critic of established religion, or a philosophe, in late 18 th -century France. His work is often perceived as less inventive than the work of other materialist philosophes, such as Helvétius and Diderot. However, I claim that d’Holbach makes an original, unjustly overlooked move in the criticism of religious moral teaching. According to the materialist philosophes, this teaching claims that true happiness is only possible in the afterlife. As an alternative, Helvétius and Diderot offer theories according (...) to which the experience of pleasure constitutes happiness, the end of all human desire. In contemporary terms, these theories would represent psychological hedonism. But, as Diderot himself admits, they have a problem in accounting for why people seem to naturally regard some pleasures as preferable to others. I argue that in response to this challenge, instead of accepting the psychological hedonism of his fellow materialists, d’Holbach shows how one can abstain from reducing happiness to pleasure and yet remain a materialist. (shrink)

Among Spinoza’s principal projects in the Ethics is his effort to “remove” certain metaethical prejudices from the minds of his readers, to “expose” them, as he has similar misconceptions about other matters, by submitting them to the “scrutiny of reason”. In this article, I consider the argumentative strategy Spinoza uses here – and its intellectual history – in depth. I argue that Spinoza’s method is best characterised as a genealogical analysis. As I recount, by Spinoza’s time of writing, these kinds (...) of arguments already had a long and illustrious history. However, I also argue that, in his adoption of such strategies, we have good reason to think Spinoza’s primary influence was Gersonides. Elucidating this aspect of Spinoza’s critique of his contemporaries’ axiologies brings a number of explicatory and historical boons. However, regrettably, it also comes at a cost, revealing a significant flaw in Spinoza’s reasoning. Towards the end of this article, I consider the nature of this flaw, whether Spinoza can avoid it and its ramifications for Spinoza’s wider philosophical project. (shrink)

Balibar presents Spinoza as a profound critic of " the anthropomorphic illusion. " Spinoza famously derides the tendency of humans to project their own imagined traits and tendencies onto the rest of nature. The anthropomorphic illusion yields a gross overestimation our own agency. I argue in this essay that the flip side of this illusion is our refusal to extend certain properties we reserve exclusively to ourselves. The result is that we disregard the power of social and political institutions because (...) they do not resemble us. The anthropomorphic illusion therefore causes us both to overestimate our power as singular individuals and to underestimate the power of social and political institutions. If we understand ourselves and institutions as " transindividuals " rather than on the illusory model of substantial individuality, it is unproblematic to attribute individuality to collective powers, like the commonwealth, and makes better sense of how we are determined by external forces. (shrink)

Une analyse de l'interprétation de la philosophie spinoziste comme philosophie de l'immanence soutenue par G. Deleuze, notamment dans "Qu'est-ce que la philosophie?" (Paris: Éd. Minuit, 1991).

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.... And one fine morning—So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past. in the appendix to the first part of the Ethics, Spinoza famously claims that “all final causes are nothing but human fictions”. From the very beginning of its reception until the (...) present day, supporters of Spinoza’s philosophy commonly praised this attack on final causes. In fact, Spinoza emphatically introduces the Appendix by making clear that a correct... (shrink)

This paper offers a critical discussion of Jonathan Israel’s thesis that the political and moral ideas and values which define liberal democratic modernity should be regarded as the legacy of the Radical Enlightenment and thus as deriving from Spinoza. What I take issue with is not Israel’s map of the actual historical lines of intellectual descent of ideas and account of their social and political impact, but the accompanying conceptual claim, that Spinozism as filtrated by the naturalistic wing of eighteenth-century (...) French thought, is conceptually sufficient for the ideology of modernity. The post-Kantian idealist development, I argue, qualifies as radical, and hinges on Spinoza, but its construal of Spinoza does not fit Israel’s thesis, and reflects an appreciation of the limitations, for the purpose of creating a rational modernity, of the naturalistic standpoint represented by thinkers such as d’Holbach. (shrink)

Spinoza Contra Phenomenology fundamentally recasts the history of postwar French thought, typically presumed to have been driven by a critique of reason indebted to Nietzsche and Heidegger. Although the reception of phenomenology gave rise to many innovative developments in French philosophy, from existentialism to deconstruction, not everyone in France was pleased with this German import. This book recounts how a series of French philosophers used Spinoza to erect a bulwark against the nominally irrationalist tendencies of phenomenology. From its beginnings in (...) the interwar years, this rationalism would prove foundational for Althusser's rethinking of Marxism and Deleuze's ambitious metaphysics. There has been a renewed enthusiasm for Spinozism of late by those who see his work as a kind of neo-vitalism or philosophy of life and affect. Peden counters this trend by tracking a decisive and neglected aspect of Spinoza's philosophy—his rationalism—in a body of thought too often presumed to have rejected reason. In the process, he demonstrates that the virtues of Spinoza's rationalism have yet to be exhausted. (shrink)

Samuel Clarke was one of Spinoza's earliest and fiercest opponents in England. I uncover three related Clarkean arguments against Spinoza's metaphysic that deserve more attention from readers today. Collectively, these arguments draw out a tension at the very heart of Spinoza's rationalist system. From the conjunction of a necessary being who acts necessarily and the principle of sufficient reason, Clarke reasons that there could be none of the diversity we find in the universe. In doing so, Clarke potentially reveals an (...) inconsistent triad in Spinoza. Responses to this inconsistency map onto a deep division in the contemporary Spinoza literature. I conclude that Clarke's arguments provide a new approach to the recently revived debate over acosmic interpretations of Spinoza and point to new interpretive possibilities. (shrink)

Benedict de Spinoza, C.S. Peirce, and Gilles Deleuze delineate a trajectory through the history of ideas in the dialogue about the potentials and limitations of panpsychism, the view that world is fundamentally made up of mind. As a parallel trajectory to the panpsychism debate in contemporary philosophy of mind and cognitive psychology, this approach can inform and enrich the discussion of the role and scope of mind in the natural world. The philosophies of mind developed by Deleuze and Peirce are (...) Spinozistic in their natural monism but move beyond Spinoza to explain mind as a part of the natural world in semiotic terms. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss an on Spinoza written by Hans Jonas in 1965: “Spinoza and the Theory of Organism”. First, I present Jonas’ main argument and the theoretical assumptions of his essay; then I expand on the possible development of these assumptions with the aim of proposing a complete theory of being; a Spinozian ontology. Finally, my argument will focus on the interpretation of Spinoza’s work and thought as an organicism and the possible relations between this reading and Jonas’ (...) article. (shrink)

In This Paper I Aim to Place Spinoza’s famous injunction in the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, to separate philosophy from theology, in its historical context. I contend that in order to properly understand Spinoza’s views concerning the relationship between philosophy and theology, we must view his work in the context of philosophical discussions taking place during his time and in his country of residence, the Dutch Republic. Of particular relevance is a meta-philosophical thesis advocated by a certain group of Cartesian philosophers and (...) theologians. Their thesis was developed in response to attacks on Cartesianism from more conservative authors, who saw it as a source of impiety. It stated that Cartesian .. (shrink)

Este artículo se propone realizar un abordaje crítico de la ontología afirmativa de Gilles Deleuze a partir de las objeciones realizadas por Georg Hegel a Spinoza en su Ciencia de la lógica. La hipótesis de trabajo es que, dada la herencia spinozista del pensamiento de Deleuze, estas críticas pueden resultar pertinentes para reflexionar sobre algunos puntos fundamentales. De esta manera, se intenta contrariar la habitual tendencia de los estudios deleuzianos de trabajar en una clave anti-hegeliana, es decir, a partir de (...) una separación teórica total con la problemática de Hegel. Se descarta la posibilidad de centrar las críticas de Hegel en torno a la sentencia "omni determinatio est negatio" o la imposibilidad de progresar desde la afirmación absoluta (por lo que el verdadero comienzo en Spinoza -y por tanto en Deleuze- sería la mera realidad empírica donde los elementos se vinculan de manera extrínseca, es decir, sin concepto). El punto de inconmensurabilidad es que Hegel afirma que es necesario que exista un movimiento de retorno (zurürckkehren) para que la afirmación no se degrade al punto de la disolución, mientras que Deleuze prefiere el movimiento de eterno retorno (ewige wiederkunft) como apertura insistente en el porvenir. Este artigo se propõe a realizar uma abordagem crítica da ontologia afirmativa de Gilles Deleuze a partir das objeções realizadas por Georg Hegel a Spinoza em sua Ciência da Lógica. A hipótese de trabalho é que, visto que o pensamento de Deleuze tem uma herança spinozista, essas críticas podem resultar pertinentes para refletir sobre alguns pontos fundamentais. Desta maneira, tenta-se contrariar a habitual tendência dos estudos deleuzianos de trabalharem em um espírito anti-hegeliano, isto é, a partir de uma separação teórica total com a problemática de Hegel. Descarta-se a possibilidade de centrar as críticas de Hegel em torno à sentença "omni determinatio est negatio". Também parece não ir ao coração do problema o fato de assinalar que, já que desde a afirmação absoluta não se pode progredir, o verdadeiro começo em Spinoza (e Deleuze) é a mera realidade empírica na qual os elementos se vinculam de maneira extrínseca, isto é, sem conceito. O ponto de incomensurabilidade é que Hegel afirma que é necessário que exista um movimento de retorno (zurürckkehren) para que a afirmação não se degrade ao ponto da dissolução, enquanto Deleuze prefere o movimento de eterno retorno (ewige wiederkunft) como abertura insistente no porvir. (shrink)

This chapter argues that Spinoza's political philosophy played an important role in the fact that the mature Leibniz was a strict anti-Spinozist. Leibniz's reading of Spinoza's political texts developed from an initial mixed reaction of both interest and scandal towards a curious exclusion of the Spinozist possibility. Indeed, there is not a single text by the mature Leibniz addressing Spinoza's political philosophy. In order to overcome this textual problem, and establish the parameters for a confrontation between the two philosophers on (...) the issue of political philosophy, the chapter considers how Leibniz and Spinoza respectively approached Hobbes' theory of natural right and contract theory. This interpretive triangulation allows determining with some plausibility what stance Leibniz took with regard to Spinoza's political philosophy in spite of the fact that he never actually stated it explicitly. (shrink)

In what follows, I will substantiate the argument that there are at least two senses in which Spinoza’s principles support revolutionary change. I will begin with a quick survey of his concerns with the problem of insurrection. I will proceed to show that if political programs can be called revolutionary, insofar as freedom is their motivation and justification, and insofar as freedom implies an expansion of the scope of the general interest to the whole political body, Spinoza ought to be (...) called a revolutionary. Finally, I will contend that even if he does not praise mass insurrection, he finds its guarantee in the laws of human nature itself, which cannot tolerate tyranny. And, thus, it is in a revolutionary vein that Spinoza cites Seneca repeatedly: violenta imperianemo continuit diu (TTP 5 8, 16 9). (shrink)

What surfaces first when one examines the philosophy of mind of Sartre and Spinoza are the differences between them. For Spinoza a human mind is a mode of the divine mind. That view is a far cry from Sartre’s view of human consciousness as a desire never achieved: the desire to be god, to be the foundation of one’s own existence. How could two philosophers, one a determinist and the other who grounds human freedom in the nature of consciousness itself, (...) be seen as having any commonalities worth exploring? How could the noted user of the deductive method and one of the most important phenomenologists of the twentieth century share any philosophical ground at all? I will argue in this paper that despite the very real differences between their two philosophies, there are striking similarities between Sartre’s view of consciousness and Spinoza’s view of the mind. They become apparent when one examines each one’s analysis of the nature of mind and its relationship to itself, the body, and the world. Both are heir to a kind of Aristotelian naturalism. This commonality between them derives from their mutual rejection of Descartes’ substance dualism. I first explore the consequences of that rejection on how each one conceives of the relationship between the mind and its objects. Next I examine their view of the mind’s relation to itself and finally I look at how each one understood the mind’s relationship to the body and the world. The examination of their two views reveals how much they anticipate and support theories of mind defended by contemporary analytic philosophers of mind. (shrink)

Friedrich Nietzsche was Less Well-Read in the history of philosophy than were many of his peers in the pantheon, whether Hegel before him or Heidegger after, but he was not for that reason any less hesitant to pronounce judgment on the worth of the other great philosophers: Plato was “boring”; Descartes was “superficial”; Hobbes, Hume, and Locke signify “a debasement and lowering of the concept of ‘philosophy’ for more than a century”; Kant was an “idiot” and a “catastrophic spider,” etc.1 (...) Against this overarching trend of negativity, his uncharacteristically positive response to one thinker, a thinker who initially appears to us as quite different from him, is all the more surprising. In the summer of .. (shrink)

Russell’s critique of substance monism is an ideal starting point from which to understand some main concepts in Spinoza’s difficult metaphysics. This paper provides an in-depth examination of Spinoza’s proof that only one substance exists. On this basis, it rejects Russell’s interpretation of Spinoza’s theory of reality as founded upon the logical doctrine that all propositions consist of a predicate and a subject. An alternative interpretation is offered: Spinoza’s substance is not a bearer of properties, as Russell implied, but an (...) eternally active, self-actualizing creative power. Eventually, Spinoza the Monist and Russell the Pluralist are at one in holding that process and activity rather than enduring things are the most fundamental realities. (shrink)

: In a short and much-neglected passage in the second Critique, Kant discusses the threat posed to human freedom by theological determinism. In this paper we present an interpretation of Kant’s conception of and response to this threat. Regarding his conception, we argue that he addresses two versions of the threat: either God causes appearances directly or he does so indirectly by causing things in themselves which in turn cause appearances. Kant’s response to the first version is that God cannot (...) cause appearances directly because they depend essentially on the passive sensibility of finite beings. Kant’s response to the second version is that human beings are endowed with transcendental freedom, which blocks the causal transitivity that is presupposed by this version. We also contrast his position on this topic with Leibniz’s and Spinoza’s. (shrink)

In the first part of the paper I reconstruct Kant’s proof of the existence of a ‘most real being’ while also highlighting the theory of modality that motivates Kant’s departure from Leibniz’s version of the proof. I go on to argue that it is precisely this departure that makes the being that falls out of the pre-critical proof look more like Spinoza’s extended natura naturans than an independent, personal creator-God. In the critical period, Kant seems to think that transcendental idealism (...) allows him to avoid this conclusion, but in the last section of the paper I argue that there is still one important version of the Spinozistic threat that remains. -/- . (shrink)

Negri celebrates a conception of democracy in which the concrete powers of individual humans are not alienated away, but rather are added together: this is a democracy of the multitude. But how can the multitude act without alienating anyone’s power? To answer this difficulty, Negri explicitly appeals to Spinoza. Nonetheless, in this paper, I argue that Spinoza’s philosophy does not support Negri’s project. I argue that the Spinozist multitude avoids internal hierarchy through the mediation of political institutions and not in (...) spite of them; nor do these institutions merely emanate from the multitude as it is, but rather they structure, restrain and channel its passions. In particular, the required institutions are not those of a simple direct democracy. There may be other non-Spinozist arguments on which Negri can ground his theory, but he cannot legitimately defend his conception of the democratic multitude by appeal to Spinoza. (shrink)

Kant declared that philosophy began in 1781 with his Critique of Pure Reason. In 1806 Hegel announced that it had been completed. Förster assesses the steps that led from Kant’s “beginning” to Hegel’s “end” and concludes that both Kant and Hegel were indeed right. His study reveals Goethe’s significant contribution to post-Kantian thinking.

There can be little doubt that without Spinoza, German Idealism would have been just as impossible as it would have been without Kant. Yet the precise nature of Spinoza's influence on the German Idealists has hardly been studied in detail. This volume of essays by leading scholars sheds light on how the appropriation of Spinoza by Fichte, Schelling and Hegel grew out of the reception of his philosophy by, among others, Lessing, Mendelssohn, Jacobi, Herder, Goethe, Schleiermacher, Maimon and, of course, (...) Kant. The volume thus not only illuminates the history of Spinoza's thought, but also initiates a genuine philosophical dialogue between the ideas of Spinoza and those of the German Idealists. The issues at stake - the value of humanity; the possibility and importance of self-negation; the nature and value of reason and imagination; human freedom; teleology; intuitive knowledge; the nature of God - remain of the highest philosophical importance today. (shrink)

Spinoza took it to be an important psychological fact that belief cannot be compelled. At the same time, he was well aware of the compelling power that religious and political fictions can have on the formation of our beliefs. I argue that Spinoza allows that there are ‘good’ and ‘bad’ fictions. His complex account of the imagination and fiction, and their disabling or enabling roles in gaining knowledge of Nature, is a site of disagreement among commentators. The novels of George (...) Eliot (who translated Spinoza's works) represent a significant development for those who aim to resolve such disagreement in favour of the epistemic value of the imagination and fiction. Although Eliot agreed with Spinoza that belief cannot be compelled, she nevertheless affirmed the potential of certain kinds of fiction to be not only compelling but also edifying. The parallel reading of Eliot and Spinoza offered here raises the question of whether his philosophy can accommodate a theory of art in which the artist is seen to be capable of attaining and imparting dependable knowledge. (shrink)