Spinoza on Human Freedom

Spinoza on Human Freedom PDF Author: Matthew J. Kisner
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139500090
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 275

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Book Description
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.

Spinoza on Human Freedom

Spinoza on Human Freedom PDF Author: Matthew J. Kisner
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139500090
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 275

Get Book Here

Book Description
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.

Spinoza and Moral Freedom

Spinoza and Moral Freedom PDF Author: S. Paul Kashap
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 9780887065293
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 218

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Book Description
Spinoza and Moral Freedom guides the reader through Spinoza's principal ideas and powerful lines of reasoning, clearing up obscurities along the way, while acknowledging the genuine difficulties and gaps. At the same time, it neither intrudes the author's own beliefs and personality upon the reader nor gives instructions on what the reader's own final judgment should be. What Kashap offers is pure Spinoza, rather than a Spinoza reformed in light of another person's wishes or preoccupations. In this respect, Kashap's approach is refreshingly new and unique. The style is graceful and lucid, and in no way obscured by philosophical jargon.

Freedom, Action, and Motivation in Spinoza’s "Ethics"

Freedom, Action, and Motivation in Spinoza’s Author: Noa Naaman-Zauderer
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000732460
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Book Description
The present volume posits the themes of freedom, action, and motivation as the central principles that drive Spinoza’s Ethics from its first part to its last. It assembles essays by internationally leading scholars who provide different, sometimes opposing interpretations of these fundamental themes as they operate across the five parts of the Ethics and within its manifold domains. The diversity of issues, approaches, and perspectives within this volume, along with the chapters’ common focus, open up new ways of understanding not only some of the key concepts and main objectives in the Ethics but also the threads unifying the entire work. The sequence of essays in the book broadly follows the order of the Ethics, providing up-to-date perspectives of Spinoza’s views on freedom, action, and motivation in their ontological, cognitive, physical, affective, and ethical facets. This enables readers to engage with a variety of new interpretations of these key themes of the Ethics and to reconsider their consequences both for other related issues in the Ethics and for the relevance of the Ethics to contemporary trends in philosophy of action and motivation. The essays will contribute to the growing interest in Spinoza’s Ethics and spark further discussion and debate within and outside the vast body of scholarship on this important work. Freedom, Action, and Motivation in Spinoza’s Ethics will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working on Spinoza and early modern philosophy, as well as on philosophy of action and motivation.

Spinoza's Book of Life

Spinoza's Book of Life PDF Author: Steven B. Smith
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300128495
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
Offering a new reading of Spinoza's masterpiece, Smith asserts that the 'Ethics' is a celebration of human freedom and its attendant joys and responsibilities and should be placed among the great founding documents of the Enlightenment.

From Bondage to Freedom

From Bondage to Freedom PDF Author: Michael LeBuffe
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199726159
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 266

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Book Description
Spinoza rejects fundamental tenets of received morality, including the notions of Providence and free will. Yet he retains rich theories of good and evil, virtue, perfection, and freedom. Building interconnected readings of Spinoza's accounts of imagination, error, and desire, Michael LeBuffe defends a comprehensive interpretation of Spinoza's enlightened vision of human excellence. Spinoza holds that what is fundamental to human morality is the fact that we find things to be good or evil, not what we take those designations to mean. When we come to understand the conditions under which we act-that is, when we come to understand the sorts of beings that we are and the ways in which we interact with things in the world-then we can recast traditional moral notions in ways that help us to attain more of what we find to be valuable. For Spinoza, we find value in greater activity. Two hazards impede the search for value. First, we need to know and acquire the means to be good. In this respect, Spinoza's theory is a great deal like Hobbes's: we strive to be active, and in order to do so we need food, security, health, and other necessary components of a decent life. There is another hazard, however, that is more subtle. On Spinoza's theory of the passions, we can misjudge our own natures and fail to understand the sorts of beings that we really are. So we can misjudge what is good and might even seek ends that are evil. Spinoza's account of human nature is thus much deeper and darker than Hobbes's: we are not well known to ourselves, and the self-knowledge that is the foundation of virtue and freedom is elusive and fragile.

Spinoza and Education

Spinoza and Education PDF Author: Johan Dahlbeck
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317394348
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
Spinoza and Education offers a comprehensive investigation into the educational implications of Spinoza’s moral theory. Taking Spinoza’s naturalism as its point of departure, it constructs a considered account of education, taking special care to investigate the educational implications of Spinoza’s psychological egoism. What emerges is a counterintuitive form of education grounded in the egoistic striving of the teacher to persevere and to flourish in existence while still catering to the ethical demands of the students and the greater community. In providing an educational reading of Spinoza’s moral theory, this book sets up a critical dialogue between educational theory and recent studies which highlight the centrality of ethics in Spinoza’s overall philosophy. By placing his work in a contemporary educational context, chapters explore a counterintuitive conception of education as an ethical project, aimed at overcoming the desire to seek short-term satisfaction and troubling the influential concept of the student as consumer. This book also considers how education, from a Spinozistic point of view, may be approached in terms of a kind of cognitive therapy serving to further a more scientifically adequate understanding of the world and aimed at combating prejudices and superstition. Spinoza and Education demonstrates that Spinoza’s moral theory can further an educational ideal, where notions of freedom and self-preservation provide the conceptual core of a coherent philosophy of education. As such, it will appeal to researchers, academics and postgraduate students in the fields of philosophy of education, theory of education, critical thinking, philosophy, ethics, and Spinoza studies.

Spinoza

Spinoza PDF Author: Roger Scruton
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 9780415923903
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 54

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Book Description
Ostracized by the Jewish community in Amsterdam into which he was born, Spinoza developed a political philosophy that set out to justify the secular State, ruled by a liberal constitution, and a metaphysics, according to which everything exists in God as a 'mode' of the divine substance, that sought to reconcile human freedom with a belief in scientific explanation. In this book Roger Scruton presents a clear and systematic analysis of Spinoza's thought, and shows its relevance to today's intellectual preoccupations.

The Cambridge Companion to Spinoza's Ethics

The Cambridge Companion to Spinoza's Ethics PDF Author: Olli Koistinen
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139827650
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 334

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Book Description
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.

The Ethics of Joy

The Ethics of Joy PDF Author: Andrew Youpa
Publisher:
ISBN: 0190086025
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
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.

Spinoza on Reason, Passions, and the Supreme Good

Spinoza on Reason, Passions, and the Supreme Good PDF Author: Andrea Sangiacomo
Publisher:
ISBN: 0198847904
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
Andrea Sangiacomo offers a new understanding of Spinoza's moral philosophy, how his views significantly evolved over time, and how he himself struggled during his career to develop a theory that could speak to human beings as they actually are--imperfect, passionate, and often not very rational.