De Dijn's comprehensive introduction to Spinoza's philosophy is based on two key texts. He first provides an in-depth analysis of Spinoza's Treatise on the Improvement of the Understanding, which De Dijn characterizes as his introduction to philosophy. This notoriously difficult text is here made accessible, even in its details. This analysis is followed by a comprehensive survey of Spinoza's metaphysics as presented in his famous Ethics. De Dijn demonstrates how Spinoza's central philosophical project as introduced in the Treatise-the linkage of (...) knowledge and salvation-is perfectly realized in the Ethics. In this way the unity of Spinoza's thought is shown to consist in his preoccupation with the "ethical" question of salvation. The book also contains introductory chapters on Spinoza's life and work, the original Latin text of the Treatise and its new English translation by Edwin Curley, and an annotated bibliography on the secondary literature. (shrink)
The modern idea of the right to freedom of each human being can be briefly described as follows: it is the right to personal judgment in matters of what is true and good and to selfdetermination of one’s life and actions in view of this judgment. Today this right is considered as the most basic, or one of the most basic, unquestionable rights of the individual. At the same time, our present situation is characterized by an undeniable pluralism. We have (...) practically given up the hope that individuals, through their own judgment, will come to an agreement as to what are the central values in life, as to what is the good life. On the contrary, too much unity and agreement immediately raises the suspicion of more or less hidden constraint or indoctrination.In a pluralistic, free society, every defense of what is the good can only be seen as the defense of a particular conception of the good, which is potentially threatening for the self-determination of other individuals. The combination of the stress on freedom and the fact of pluralism, leads to an extreme importance being given to tolerance. Tolerance, together with the multiplicity of life-styles, seems to be something positive in itself. Within this perspective, the real question does not seem to be whether tolerance is something positive in itself, but whether it has any limitations. (shrink)
Spinoza and Hume are two naturalist philosophers who were among the first modern thinkers to study religion as a natural phenomenon. There undoubtedly are similarities in their accounts of the origin of religion in imagination and passion . But those who see Hume as a crypto-Spinozist are nevertheless confronted with serious differences between the two philosophers with respect to their understanding of religion and its various forms. These differences concern fundamental issues like the meaning and acceptability of the notion of (...) God and its function in different spheres, the possibility of a kind of philosophical religiosity, and the possible advantage of religion, at least in some of its forms, to individual and social life. The militant “Spinozism” of Hume belongs to a world perhaps made possible by Spinoza, but nevertheless alien to him. (shrink)
Basically, I agree with Chen Lai's views on the difficulties of translating ancient Chinese thinking into modern Western idioms. The problem is not only due to the dependence of the meaning of terms upon their use in a specific context. The problem is already there for Chinese scholars themselves: It is the translation of words or concepts from a traditional learned context related to specific questions into modern Chinese language. In order to succeed, one has to realize, first, that modern (...) colloquial Chinese is divorced from classical Chinese categories and, secondly, that philosophical vocabulary in modern Chinese is contaminated by Western philosophical categories. (shrink)
One can assign three different aims to the desire for knowledge : utility, pleasure, truth-for-truth's-sake. Whereas the first two aims have a concretely determinable content and therefore look evident, the third one has been looked upon as strange and problematic : it is not immediately clear what kind of value is defended in this case. Popper is one of the recent defenders of the traditional ideal of truth-for-truth's-sake. He wants to defend the ideal against three positions : a primitive taboo-ridden (...) fear for knowledge and truth, relativism, instrumentalism. Analysing Popper's ethic of cognition we do not agree with the instrumentalist's critique of it. However, precisely in advocating a non-instrumentalist value, Popper's position is not unique, but paradoxically resembles the „primitive” position. Popper's belief that there is an objective or absolute truth is, in his opinion, implied by the belief that the search for knowledge makes sense. We try to show that this thesis of absolute truth is based on a conceptual mistake. In opposition to Popper's view, we sketch a form of relativism avoiding this confusion, without doing away with any concrete possibility of discussion or search for truth. At the same time, we try to understand Popper's aversion to relativism as well as the appeal of his position, in that it is a strange mixture of a heroic cognitive ethic and a desire for imaginary control over the uncontrolable. We argue that the form of relativism we advocate easily and perhaps better fulfilb the „heroic” readiness to forsake security in cognitive matters. (shrink)
Utopias are much more prone to realization than people would have thought possible, according to Berdiaeff. In the twentieth century, we have witnessed realized totalitarian utopias. In the twenty-first century, late modern, capitalist society seems well under way towards the construction of another kind of realized utopianism. Recent developments in today’s health care system all point in the same direction: the growing hold of the utopian mind on crucial aspects of human life and society. Must we not agree with Berdiaeff (...) that insight in the new ‘realized’ utopianism should induce us to dream ‘of a non-utopian society less “perfect”, but more free’?2. (shrink)
This paper is an interpretation of the precise meaning of Spinoza's provocative theses that "right is might", and that the real basis of political and other authority is power. The possibility condition of these radically modern theses — that imply the end of traditional theologico-political thinking — is a peculiar naturalistic theology. At the same time, this paper provides a brief, but thorough introduction to Spinoza's political philosophy. Some aspects of it which are often neglected, such as the intricate relationship (...) beween the law and the mores of the people, are given their due weight. (shrink)
According to Spinoza, the implications of the new scientific worldview of his time are diametrically opposed to the fundamental philosophical-theological tenets of traditional thought and religion. Yet, paradoxically, this does not bring him to the rejection of the notion of God, of notions of good and bad, or even of ordinary religion. On the contrary, his philosophy as a whole can be seen as a radical reconsideration of religion in the light of the modern situation, and not at all as (...) an exit from it. In line with the new science, Spinoza develops a new metaphysics centered on the notion Deus sive Natura, a new rational ethics, and a new philosophical religion. The new philosophical religion, being at the same time the culmination of the ethical life, is based upon the non-anthropomorphic, but still somehow transcendent, notion of God, the one substance with infinite attributes, radically different from the modes, both finite and infinite. In the final part of this article, an attempt is made to acquire some form of inside perspective on what Spinoza may mean by true religion as consisting in amor Dei intellectualis. Anticipating Hume, Spinoza considers ordinary religion as a natural phenomenon, which he studies in detail in his Tractatus Theologico-politicus. Unlike later Enlightenment thinkers, he distinguishes between superstition and purified religion, and accepts that the latter can bring a specific kind of salvation for the common people. (shrink)
This paper comprises four moves at understanding trust. 1. By opposing it to pragmatic calculation and justification and linking it to a kind of „intrinsic” reasonableness present in relationships of trust; 2. By studying the implicit ontology of relationships of trust : trust involves a certain conception of world, self, others, time, etcetera; 3. By studying certain characteristics of trust like a certain unreflexive, spontaneous surrendering of oneself; 4. By studying trust as a specific personal relationship with essentially „embedded” or (...) „incarnated” meaning . In this context one can begin to understand the connection between trust on the one hand and loyalty or faithfulness on the other). (shrink)
This paper is a reply to my critics on three points: -My book is not an apologetics for Catholic tradition in general or traditional moral views in bio-ethics, but a plea for a philosophical-hermeneutical reappropriation of metaphors and insights from that tradition; -My book is not a defence of the traditional natural law approach, but an attempt atan hermeneutical and internal critical elucidation of ethical sensibility; -I disagree with a pragmatic attitude leading to 'monster assimilation' and with pleas for a (...) 'transcendance opératoire' of existing human nature and its cultural-symbolic 'mindedness'. (shrink)
According to many scientists and philosophers, recent biotechnological discoveries and advances lead inescapably to the new, fundamental question: why consider the existing nature of man as untouchable, as sacred? Whereas the general public feels fear and outrage at the very thought of the creation of 'monsters', leading bioethicists find all this talk about the sacredness of human nature unacceptable or prejudiced. It is argued here that an answer to the question "is the existing human nature sacred?" cannot be given unless (...) another question is answered first: "why preserve our ethical way of life ?" In the remaining part of this paper, the desire to transcend existing human nature is understood by linking it to two different forms of dissatisfaction with the human way of life: it can find its origin either in the unwillingness to accept certain 'lotteries' producing all kinds of unequality among people, or in the desire to willingly lose oneself in a game of endless genetic experimentation. (shrink)
Two sorts of values are to be distinguished: economic values which are related to the subjective needs and desires of sensitive beings, and non-economic or spiritual values which are related to persons living in a common culture. The present 'crisis of values' has to do with a confusion between these two different kinds of values. Spiritual values and norms should also be distinguished from ideals and related principles. Ideals and principles are abstractions originating in the attempt to organize human life (...) in a strictly rational way, independently of the insertion of human beings in a common culture. Spiritual values are characterized by a certain sort of transcendence vis à vis the desires and opinions of persons. They are neither subjective, nor strictly objective; neither universal, non purely particular. Values are necessarily incarnated in concrete objects, persons, structures etc. Therefore, even transcendental values are necessarily expressed in concrete forms or symbols. As a consequence, all values are vulnerable and in principle susceptible to change and loss. The norms related to spiritual values should not be considered as fossilized forms or remnants of values. They rather refer to boundaries and distinctions without the honouring of which values cannot exist. Therefore, these norms are no obstacle to freedom, but its possibility-condition. (shrink)
Hume's *A Treatise of Human Nature* constitutes a philosophical anthropology quite different from a philosophy of (self-)consciousness or of the subject. According to Hume, the Self or Subject is itself a product of human nature, that is, of the workings of a structured set of principles which explains all typically human phenomena. On the same basis, Hume discusses all "moral" subjects, such as science, morality and politics (including economics), art and religion as well as the different reflections about all these (...) such as philosophy, criticism, political theory, history, theology, and so forth. The Treatise therefore is the study of the (de facto) possibility conditions of what is (typically) human. The principles of human nature are not primarily reason, or free will and reason, but the heart, that is, a combination of principles concerning the imagination and the sensibility or the emotions, all of them irrevocably socially determined. (shrink)
In his book Rede en religie: Een verkenning, Michiel Leezenberg discusses three aspects of religion: religion as a belief system, as it pertains to moral values and the experience of meaning, and as a practice. Concerning each of these aspects, he asks himself the question of the relation between religion and rationality. While touching on all three, this paper focuses on Leezenberg's treatment of the second aspect of religion. Although religion is of course a system of beliefs, these beliefs are (...) strongly embedded in specific practices, making a straightforward comparison with scientific beliefs highly problematic. The central problem discussed here is that of the relation between religious values and modern, secular values. The paper argues that the opposition is not simply between religious and secular morality, but between any morality in which moral taboos play an essential role and a certain utopianism present in secular morality. This leads to an investigation of the supposed link between religion and conservatism. The paper ends with a discussion of the recent phenomenon of the 'retour du religieux' in the form of a growing interest in religious experience via 'spirituality'. (shrink)
ONE OF THE intriguing features of Spinoza's well-known work, the Ethics, is its "geometrical method." Even today, there is fundamental disagreement among interpreters concerning practically every aspect of this method. Spinoza's own explicit thoughts about philosophical method are almost exclusively to be found in a short, unfinished work, the Tractatus de Intellectus Emendatione, in which Spinoza does not seem to talk about a geometrical method at all.
This article presents an overall view of Hume's philosophy as it can be found in the Treatise. It shows that Hume's position can be called a nonreductionist naturalism. Hume's philosophy is a philosophical anthropology: it begins with a discussion of what is typically human in human understanding, i.e., knowledge and probability or the belief-systems of science and philosophy. Then, morality and politics are retraced as to their origin in emotions and desires. In the final part of the article it is (...) explained in what sense Hume can be called a nonreductionist naturalist. (shrink)
In her recent book, Liberty of Conscience: In Defence of America’s Tradition of Religious Equality the influential philosopher Martha Nussbaum defends the American way of separation between politics and religion, as against the European ways. According to her interpretation this separation implies not only the prevention of unacceptable interference in religious matters, but also the affirmation of the equal dignity of religious differences. Although this position seems to be very favourable to religion, it is based on presuppositions that are very (...) questionable. Religion is defined by Nussbaum in a very narrow way as the individual’s quest for meaning and truth. Also, the understanding of what is required politically with respect to equal dignity is found to be inadequate. Equally debatable is her idea that there can be a freestanding ethical core in politics completely divorced from religious or non-religious moral values as embedded in culture. Nussbaum’s liberal conception of religion and of its place in contemporary politics is perhaps compatible with the American view of the separation between politics and religion. Whether Europeans should change their politics according to this conception is another matter. (shrink)
ONE OF THE intriguing features of Spinoza's well-known work, the Ethics, is its "geometrical method." Even today, there is fundamental disagreement among interpreters concerning practically every aspect of this method. Spinoza's own explicit thoughts about philosophical method are almost exclusively to be found in a short, unfinished work, the Tractatus de Intellectus Emendatione, in which Spinoza does not seem to talk about a geometrical method at all.
