Spinoza

This work is concerned with some basic problems which historical criticism poses to biblical interpretation. The first chapter deals with historical criticism in relation to problems of the text’s historical distance and contemporary significance. Certain key figures from the field of philosophical hermeneutics are briefly introduced (Schleiermacher, Gadamer, Hirsch, Ricoeur), but attention is also paid to the ways how historical criticism was actually practiced (Wellhausen, Mowinckel). It is maintained that historical criticism is a tool in interpretation and does not impede possible appropriation of the text by those who read it with deep affection.

The second chapter faces historical criticism as a theological problem, which has become most apparent in the inerrantist milieu and which was more or less successfully answered by canonical approaches. A special attention is given to the canonical approach of Brevard Childs, which is understood against the backdrop of Barth’s doctrine of the Word of God and Frei’s view of biblical narratives. A special attention is given to distinction between approaches of Brevard Childs and James Sanders. It is maintained that Sanders’ canonical criticism provides better interpretive platform, because it wants to address the needs of contemporary interpretive communities through a self-aware historical critical enterprise.

The third chapter takes up the problem of violence in the book of Joshua and the problem of theological meaning of the exodus story. Biblical theological insights of James Sanders, James Barr, and Walter Brueggemann are applied. An eye is kept also on Pixley-Levenson debate and it is maintained that traditions of the exodus and conquest must be understood together as literary devices which invite communities of faith to freedom. As a result of the present research, historical criticism is presented as a hermeneutical tool which can help to rescue text’s significance for the contemporary communities of believers.

We live in an age of movement. More than at any other time in history , people and things move longer distances, more frequently, and faster than ever before. All that was solid melted into air long ago and is now in full circulation around the world like dandelion seeds adrift on turbulent winds. We find ourselves, in the early twenty-first century, in a world where every major domain of human activity has become increasingly defined by motion. 1 We have entered a new historical era defined in large part by movement and mobility and are now in need of a new historical on-tology appropriate to our time. The observation that the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first was marked by an increasingly " liquid " and " mobile modernity " is now something widely recognized in the scholarly literature at the turn of the century. 2 Today, however, our orientation to this event is quite different. Almost twenty years into the twenty-first century we now find ourselves situated on the other side of this heralded transition. The question that confronts us today is thus a new one: how to fold all that has melted back up into new solids. 3

מאמר זה דן בשאלה מדוע שפינוזה מציב את הגדרת התואר של האלוהים ביחס אל השכל? המאמר חוקר את היחס שבין השכל לתארים, וכיצד יחס זה מוביל לקריאות שונות של תארי שפינוזה. לבסוף אנו נווכח כי מתוך תורת התארים של שפינוזה נוצר יחס ופתרון לבעיה הפסיכופיזית שירש שפינוזה מדקרט.

Naar aanleiding van Thierry Baudet’s overwinningsspeech
na afloop van de verkiezingen in maart 2019, probeert deze
bijdrage grip te krijgen op de veelgehoorde kritiek op de
populistische stijl van politiek bedrijven, aan de hand van
Plato’s bespiegelingen over de rol van mythes in de publieke
sfeer. De filosoof was kritisch over het populaire gebruik
van verhalen door bijvoorbeeld de dichters van zijn
tijd, maar maakte zelf veel gebruik van de verhaalvorm in
zijn zoektocht naar de waarheid c.q. het goede. Het roept
de vraag op wanneer de politieke mythe zuiver en wanneer
onzuiver wordt gebruikt, een vraag waar Plato wel
een abstract maar geen concreet antwoord op geeft. Zijn
genuanceerde blik op de mythe maakt wel duidelijk dat
het populisme zich niet onderscheidt door een gebrek aan
respect voor de feiten, want dat geldt voor de ervaring van
het politieke in het algemeen. Ook kan de klassieke denker
ons leren dat we alleen een positie kunnen bepalen in de
mêlee van beelden en verhalen waar wij tegenwoordig mee
te maken hebben, door de filosofische confrontatie met de
verbeeldingswereld aan te gaan.

What remains alive of a philosopher's thought are the realities that concern him, the problems that he addresses, as well as the questions that he poses. The breath and depth of a philosopher's thought is what continues to excite and incite today. However, his answers are limited to his time and circumstances, and these are subject to the historical evolution of thought, yet his principal commitments are based on the problems and questions with which he is concerned. And this is what resounds of a philosopher's thought, which we can theoretically and practically adopt and adapt. Spinoza is immersed in a time of reforms, and he is a revolutionary and a reformer himself.

On a souvent prétendu ignorer l'originalité de la pensée spinoziste du politique en rabattant ses thèses sur celles, plus familières et moins inquiétantes, du iusnaturalisme ou du libéralisme politique. Spinoza aura donc été pour un courant « normalisateur » longtemps majoritaire parmi les interprètes de son oeuvre un partisan du contrat social à l'instar de Puffendorf ou un défenseur des libertés de l'homme propriétaire à la façon de Locke@. Certes, il existe des passages de l'oeuvre spinoziste qui, lus hors contexte, se prêteraient à de telles interprétations moyennant une certaine violence faite au texte. Cependant, une lecture plus approfondie du Spinoza politique qui tient compte, comme Spinoza lui-même maintes fois le réclame, de ses thèses ontologiques, ne peut aucunement se confondre avec ces positions « classiques », mais doit constater l'existence dans l'oeuvre spinozienne d' une très profonde anomalie par rapport à celles-ci. Cette ligne de lecture dont Gilles Deleuze, Pierre Mâcherey ou Antonio Negri constituent des références essentielles s'efforce de montrer le profond remaniement de la grammaire philosophique moderne qui a lieu dans l'oeuvre spinoziste, en insistant sur l'immanentisme radical de la doctrine et sur la centralité du concept de puissance@. Ontologie et philosophie politique, qui dans les interprétations traditionnelles étaient maintenues à l'écart l'une de l'autre, sont dans cette ligne d'interprétation immanentiste reliées dans une même problématique. Dans l'interprétation du spinozisme comme une philosophie de la puissance, la critique des grands concepts de l'onto-théologie aura ainsi des conséquences directes dans le domaine de la théorie politique. I On ne peut pas ignorer que la philosophie politique classique se fonde elle aussi sur une ontologie. La doctrine moderne de l'Etat et de la souveraineté tourne, que ce soit pour l'affirmer ou pour en limiter la portée, autour d'une théorie substantialiste de la souveraineté. Pour cette théorie, le souverain est non seulement un pouvoir qui, par sa grandeur incomparable à celle de tous les autres, se trouve en mesure de gouverner une société, mais également la substance autour de laquelle se fait l'unité d'un corps politique. Cette substance possède comme toute substance les caractéristiques

Whilst the concept of the subject has been called into question by many diverse approaches within contemporary political and social theory, there remains a focus upon agency, now attributable to reformulated subjectivities or assemblages. I query the persistence of this grammar of agency and ask whether politics can do without a ‘scene of the subject’. Spinoza’s philosophy, in particular his conception of conatus, has inspired and offered some basis for rethinking agency. I examine two such prominent positions (Judith Butler and Jane Bennett) and argue that ultimately neither captures the political promise of Spinoza’s philosophy. Configuring a concept of morphology to analyse this scene, my argument detaches the conatus from a narrow focus upon human desire, and focuses attention upon the scene of the subject as folded into a wider complex body. My approach also returns a study of power to the discussion: the conatus is the power to persist but it is also a differential force and site of conflict. By placing the spotlight on the scene of subjectivity in this way, the contemporary political theorist avoids the false antinomy between agency and structure, whilst continuing to track the production and composition of subjectivity in new political forms.

The issue I will examine is the role played by imitating others’ hatred of oneself—whether the ‘internalization’ of others’ hatred of one’s vice is a necessary condition and constituent of ‘agency’ as such, and specifically moral motivation.  Broad concurrence about the motivational role of affects (including hatred) in moral motivation notwithstanding, Spinoza answers ‘no’, Hume ‘yes’.  From their different answers emerge two deeply conflicting models of agency—models we are familiar with in other (and even contemporary) forms.  I want simply to show that it is different ‘moral psychologies’ of hatred that reflect ancient tensions inherent in earlier Augustinian/Aristotelian teleological accounts of hatred that constitutes, as it were, the ‘fork in the road.’

My aim is twofold. On one hand I will make a survey of the struggles for and calamities involving individuality on the part of 17 th century philosophers with respect to different corporations and institutions. This is the proper task of my paper. Further, while accomplishing this proper job I will present a specimen of a renewed philosophical history of philosophy, which turns its back on two methodological extremes. At one extreme, referring to the history of philosophy is hardly more than a purely ornamental illustration of the proper thesis or argument elaborated independently of all historical refl ection. At the other extreme lies a hyperphilological way of looking at historical facts loosing all contact with contemporary philosophical research and research communities. Both extremes can be found in contemporary thinking abundantly. Let me start with the best-known declaration of the philosopher's independence, not only from the traditional wisdom of the theologian, the rhetorician, and the phi-lologist, but also, and foremost the institutions traditional wisdom traditionally inhabited. None of the religious orders famous for philosophical scholarship, not even the Jesuits who nourished him in their college are accepted and acknowledged by the philosopher of the Discourse on Method without reserve. Nor do their secular successors fare better: The spirit that breathes through the sixth part of this text is that of deep suspicion against the typical scientifi c-scholarly corporation of the age, the private circles around a patron, semi-organizations whose existence depends not only on the providers of the fi nancial means but also on eager secretaries like Mersenne and Oldenburg. However deeply Descartes himself must have depended on the system of patronage, the passion in his colleagues' mind he suspected of dominating their but not his scientifi c research was not curiosity, but rather envy-just enough for the wish to remain separated from them: the tension between dependence and separation could not but be eased by the publishing of the Essays anonymously by an alien in the Nether-lands. As is also well-known, the story of an individual mind comprised in the Discours de la methode (»histoire de mon esprit«) came to be considered as the outer shell of an inner core, as it were, a real philosophical conviction that the individual, as a continuously thinking being, who, in rare instants of her life performs-ought to perform-what has traditionally been termed the cogito argument, is superior over the multitude, and even the community. Nothing really prevents us from seeing the cogito-like specifi c way of overcoming the certainty available in mathematics-apparently still all too »communitarian« in character-in the discovery of and reliance on the metaphysical solitude of the ego as an act of separation from institutionalized communities and even from the most sublime ones.

This paper explores Ibn Khaldun's interpretation of the history of the people of Israel through his concept of 'asabiyyah by highlighting some possible implications of it as regards the idea of the election of Israel. An emphasis is also made on parallels with Spinoza's interpretation of the election of Israel.

Rosi Braidotti is a force of nature-culture. Her work since Patterns of Difference and extending through her trilogy, which includes Nomadic Subjects, Metamorphosis and Transpositions, has been vital to a resurgence of feminist, anti-racist and materialist thought. Her incredibly prolific career – which spans multiple languages – engages with the material realities of politics within the frame of a feminist, Spinozist ethics. This is one of her many great contributions: the ways in which she can adeptly move between the realms of theory and on-the-ground politics, never losing sight of what is at stake in thinking or action. This dual insight is born from her roots in the women's movement and feminist activism; Braidotti began her career by publishing in militant journals and is always writing from and within feminist genealogy. As she writes in her brilliant essay about her own life and work, " The Untimely " : " more conceptual creativity is necessary, and more theoretical courage, in order to face the challenges and also the horrors of our times. " [1] She is an example of both conceptual creativity and theoretical courage.

La critique spinozienne des miracles est, avec le nécessitarisme et le rejet de l'autorité mosaïque du Pentateuque, une des théories qui ont le plus choqué les contemporains de Spinoza. Nous en avons une preuve dans la réaction de Henry Oldenburg qui, en 1675, demande à son correspondant de s'expliquer davantage sur ce sujet et lui signale très clairement que mettre en doute les miracles revient à saper la révélation qui leur doit sa certitude 1. Le chapitre VI du TTP soulève plusieurs problèmes. Notre but est double : nous voudrions d'une part essayer de mettre en rapport les opinions de Spinoza et celles de certains auteurs qu'il connaissait ou qu'il pouvait connaître ; d'autre part, en généralisant des résultats de l'interprétation avancée par Steven Nadler, nous nous proposons de répondre à certaines lectures de ce chapitre qui l'opposent à d'autres sections du TTP. Nous commencerons par situer le chapitre sur les miracles dans l'économie de l'ensemble du texte. Comme le titre de l'ouvrage l'indique, le TTP est composé de deux parties, l'une consacrée à un examen des Écritures et de la religion, l'autre explorant les fondements de l'État. Il est possible de tracer une autre division : la première section, consacrée à la théologie, se compose de six chapitres qui traitent de notions clé de la religion et de la théologie (la prophétie, les prophètes, l'élection des juifs, la loi divine, les rites, les miracles). Les neuf chapitres suivants détaillent les règles de l'herméneutique

ENGLISH:
The recent triumph of Conchita Wurst –a transgender artist who, acting as Austria’s representative, won the 2014 edition of the singing contest Eurovision –allows us to test Deleuze and Guattari’s concepts of desire as a positive potential of production and of becoming (woman) as the process of realizing this potential. Conchita’s online and media appearances triggered numerous reactions full of hatred, and her figure was often equated with that of the monstrous –the bearded lady, the deformity, the ‘freak’. From a Deleuzian and Spinozist standpoint, I will consider whether the force producing these reactions could be the force of a sad passion: the envy towards a becoming that challenges the binary social machine and reveals another face of the monstrous. Not the soothing organic counterpart of the ‘well constituted’ subjectivity, but a new subjective figuration whose ‘sustainability’ involves a different rapport with change.

ESPAÑOL:
El reciente triunfo de Conchita Wurst –artista transgénero que, representando a Austria, resultó ganadora en la versión 2014 del concurso de canto Eurovisión –permite poner a prueba los conceptos deleuziano-guattarianos del deseo como potencia positiva de producción y del devenir (mujer) como proceso de realización del deseo. Las apariciones mediáticas y virtuales de Conchita provocaron numerosas reacciones de odio en las que su figura es frecuentemente asimilada a la de lo monstruoso: la mujer barbuda, la deformación, el “freak”. En clave deleuziana y spinozista, me preguntaré si la fuerza que produce estas reacciones no es acaso la de una pasión triste: la envidia ante un devenir que desafía la máquina social binaria y que revela otra cara de lo monstruoso. Ya no la contratara orgánica y tranquilizadora de la subjetividad “bien constituida”, sino una nueva figuración subjetiva cuya “sustentabilidad” pasa por otra relación con el cambio.

Scoperto soltanto nel 1990, nell’unica copia sopravvissuta, l’Exame das tradiçoẽs phariseas (1624) è un punto di raccordo essenziale tra la tradizione averroistica dei marrani iberici e il pensiero di Spinoza.
Questo libro fornisce un nuovo profilo biografico-intellettuale di Uriel da Costa. Ne ricostruisce attentamente il corpus delle opere, da secoli deturpato da falsificazioni e false attribuzioni. Dopo averlo vagliato criticamente, offre il testo portoghese dell’Exame, accompagnandolo con un vasto regesto delle fonti, un ampio commento e una traduzione italiana.

"The affections lead us on," Wordsworth writes in "Tintern Abbey." While English is an impoverished language when it comes to love, Reno's focus is on the Spinozan notion of intellectual love. In this philosophy, emotions lead us to the higher feelings that can improve us. The person who experiences intellectual love interprets life as interconnected, a perspective that "generates critical thought" because it mediates a range of discourses, including science and politics (7). With focus on Romantic poetry, Reno's book interrogates quests for transcendental love in relation to the seemingly contrary pull of human bonds.

Concept of God, Arguments for the Existence of God and Experience of God in Spinoza’s Ethics

This is an introductory paper on Spinoza’s metaphysical concept of God as presented in his Ethics. In the first part I develop a reading of his definition of God by presenting first his definition of substance and then his definition of infinity. Concerning the definition of substance, following Della Rocca’s reading, I problematize the connection between the relationships of ‘being in,’ ‘conceived through’ and ‘caused by.’ After that, I link these relations to the notion of freedom. Concerning the definition of infinity, following Haserot and Shein, I problematize the ontological status of attributes and their relations. After that, I revisit the question of causation in the context of the different attributes. In the second part, following Lin and Garrett, I present Spinoza’s four arguments for the existence of God and show how the metaphysical foundations of his system allow Spinoza to develop a valid, but not necessarily sound argument. In the third part, I discuss the role of the experience of God in the latter parts of Spinoza’s system, first, by explaining the relationship between his substance monism expressed in the dictum Deus sive natura and his alleged pantheism, and second, by presenting the way in which his metaphysical views on causation and his substance monism allow him to de- velop what Melamed calls anti-humanist ethics. Finally, I discuss the relation of the finite human mind and the infinite divine intellect, and link Spinoza’s anti- humanist understanding of ethics to his metaphysical understanding of causation.

Il faut prendre au sérieux l'importance d'une doctrine de l'éducation des enfants énoncée par Spinoza dans le Traité de la réforme de l'entendement (§15) 1. Néanmoins, il faut également prendre au sérieux l'affirmation spinoziste selon laquelle les hommes, donc les parents, ne sont pas rationnels. Pourtant, la doctrine de l'éducation des enfants est censée participer à la formation d'adultes « conscients de soi, de Dieu et des choses » et susceptibles de partager la béatitude. Il faut donc concevoir une « éducation sage », selon l'expression d'Éthique IV chapitre 20, mais qui peut être menée par des parents ignorants et soumis à leurs passions. Ce serait là l'équivalent pédagogique du Traité politique : faire en sorte que les hommes éduquent bien leurs enfants, qu'ils soient soumis à leurs passions ou qu'ils soient rationnels. Pour normer l'éducation, il faudrait partir des parents – et bien sûr des enfants – tels qu'ils sont, et non tels qu'on voudrait qu'ils fussent, et aboutir, selon les termes du Traité politique I-4, « non à des conclusions nouvelles ou inédites, mais seulement à celles qui s'accordent le mieux avec la pratique », sans renoncer pour autant « à les démontrer par des raisons certaines et indubitables, en les déduisant de la condition même de la nature humaine ».

In the fourth and fifth of seven lectures on Spinoza, we will cover Part III of his Ethics and explore Spinoza's a priori doctrine of human emotions. As in the previous lectures, we will do a survey and overview of the key points of the given section. Unlike our previous lectures, we will be starting from the end of the chapter rather than the beginning, because the most insightful summaries of Spinoza's doctrine of the emotions lay there. The pace and attention to detail on Spinoza's arguments will also be relaxed in order to draw attention to the historical significance of Part III. We will begin with the definition of the conatus and discuss this in detail, and then go to Spinoza's end-of-chapter section defining the emotions. We will also draw attention to a definite albeit coincidental connection between Spinoza's doctrine of emotions and Nietzsche's doctrine of the Will to Power. We will look at emotions as affects, the definition of emotions, and then examine Spinoza's system of atomic and compound emotions. The basic compound emotions will be covered briefly and the general principles guiding the combinations of atomic emotions will be discussed, along with a brief overview of some miscellaneous psychological topics that come up in Part III.

This is the first of five powerpoint presentations going proposition by proposition through Spinoza's Ethics.  All propositions, definitions etc. are taken from Edwin Curley's translation of the ethics.  The commentary (except quotations and passages adapted from Deleuze) is my own.

Employing a method that Spinoza used in both the Tractatus Theologico-Political and the Political Treatise, this article proposes an allegorical interpretation of the recent political events in the U.S. as repetition of the events in the Dutch Republic in 1672. In providing a close textual analysis of the Political Treatise in the historical context of the original Dutch situation when Spinoza was drafting the Political Treatise, the article also examines a regressive theory of the State-Form in light of Spinoza’s own reflection on the future of the Dutch Republic.

(Please cite the final version published in the BJHP. ) In chapter IX of the Principles, Anne Conway claims that her metaphysics is diametrically opposed to those of Descartes and Spinoza. Scholars have analyzed her rejection of Cartesianism, but not her critique of Spinoza. This paper proposes that two central points of Conway's metaphysics can be understood as direct responses to Spinoza: (1) the relation between God, Christ, and the creatures in the tripartite division of being, and (2) the individuation of beings in the lowest species. I will argue that Conway, in criticizing Spinoza's identification between God and nature, defends a paradoxical monism, and that her concept of individuation is a reductio ad absurdum of Spinoza's criterion of identity in the individuation of finite modes.

In his book, Capitalised Education: An Immanent Materialist Account of Kate Middleton, David R. Cole thoughtfully and thoroughly engages in an analysis that extends beyond the modern era to take into account a multiplicity of events and forces, which in their encounters produce social and cultural phenomena. Cole’s work is explicitly political as he engages in applied philosophy to elaborate upon the flows of capitalism and the emergence of Kate Middleton as a media object. The book, in its entirety, both is and is not about Kate Middleton. Through detailed and beautiful storytelling, Cole explores various historical plateaus (e.g., the death of Princess Diana, and monarchies of King George VI, Henry II and Lady Eleanor, the rise of industrialism, attitudes towards and about teaching) and describes the ways in which those plateaus are still at work, in some cases almost one thousand years later, to construct a capitalised education. Elaborating on the notion of capitalised education, Cole describes his project as a consideration of “the ways in which the factors analysed and revealed...come together and produce palpable social and cultural effects through Kate Middleton as media object” (p. 2). In his elaborations, Cole develops an immanent materialist analysis that is informed by the work of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s notions of assemblage, the rhizome, desire, and the Body without Organs, to name a few, though Cole does not get bogged down in explaining the theory itself. Rather, Cole embodies a Deleuzoguattarian ontology as he seeks to move beyond origins and causation and instead focuses on the at times more unfamiliar, but ever-proliferating intensities that impact the ways in which we emerge with that which we encounter, at times unconsciously. Students of philosophy, history, and education, and researchers who are interested in Deleuzoguattarian-influenced work will find Cole’s work both compelling and thoroughly enjoyable. ~ anonymous, Amazon site
The pomp and ceremony of a royal wedding might seem a strange anachronism in a world of global finance and cyber-capitalism. Yet, as David Cole demonstrates, the two are folded intricately into each other. Through an immanent materialist analysis that brings together key recent and historical moments or ‘plateaus’ in the emergence of capitalism, liberalism, and constitutional monarchy, and culminating in Kate Middleton’s 2011 marriage to Prince William, Cole’s wide ranging and provocative work reveals the complex and subtle ways in which capitalism’s decoding and deterritorialization go hand-in-hand with the continuation of social privileges and hierarchies. Along the way he speaks to the major political movements of the last century (liberalism, communism, fascism, empire, and decolonization), the globalization of media, the 2008 financial crisis, and more. Linking these to both established and emerging theories of radical political action, Cole traces the moments of rupture that might allow another politics to come to the fore. ~ Nathan Widder, Royal Holloway, University of London
Kate Middleton is an international celebrity, as well as a crucial figure in the biological, economic, and cultural reproduction of the British class system. In this book, David R. Cole offers us a multifaceted analysis of Middleton as "media object." Touching on topics as diverse as courtly love in medieval Europe and derivatives markets in contemporary finance, Capitalised Education traces a web of far-flung relationships that fatally lead us back to the absurdities of our collective fascination with the British Royal Family. ~ Steven Shaviro, Wayne State University
Cole has produced a masterful and critical evaluation of how the British Monarchy continues to assert and grow its influence in the 21st century. He significantly contributes to an almost muted discourse which critically explores how this influence is achieved and what is risked and gained in its attainment. The reader can’t but be left with a desire to question whether we should be comfortable with the process and effects this has on our behaviour, development and socialisation. ~ Roberto H. Parada, University of Western Sydney

Accidents [accidens/toevallen] were recognized residents of the ontological polity of western philosophy at least since Aristotle.  While hardly ever enjoying an equal ontological status with their metaphysical superiors – substances – the presence of accidents in medieval Jewish, Islamic, and Christian philosophy was all but ubiquitous. Then something happened: rather enigmatically, accidents lost much of their legitimacy in the early modern period.  So much so that by the end of this period, many considered accidents as the bastard children of an unholy union between theological obscurantism and our flimsy imagination. This sudden fall from grace is most salient – probably more than in any other contemporary author – in the work of Benedict de Spinoza (1632-1677). The young Spinoza seemed to espouse accidents – as changeable qualities, somehow akin to modes [modi] – as significant components of the genuine furniture of reality. But, roughly from 1663 on, Spinoza systematically avoided employing the concept of accident in his ontology (and political theory).
In this paper, we will try to trace the dramatic story of the fall of accidents from Spinoza’s paradise. In the first part of the paper, we will observe the accidents roaming freely – well, almost freely – in their pre-1663 paradise of Spinoza’s early works. The second part will be dedicated to some highlights in the early history of accidents “before creation,” i.e., before their incarnation in Spinoza’s early ontological paradise. The third part will study the banishment, or systematic elimination, of accidents from Spinoza’s ontology after 1663. The fourth and final part will attempt to determine the sin which brought about the accidents’ punishment. Thus we confront a seemingly classic narrative. Without further ado, let us turn directly to our first act.

Erasmus - Early Modern Moral Philosophy - Renaissance - Philosophia Christi  - St Paul - Augustine - Platonism - Agricola - Taylor - Plato - Aristotle - Cicero - Varro - Stoicism - Epicurianism - Pico - Valla - Montaigne - Coornhert - Lipsius - Geesteranus - Walaeus - Hobbes - Geulincx - Bontekoe - Spinoza - De Courcelles - Pascal -  Theology - Philosophy

PDF del índice y primeras páginas.
La filosofía de Spinoza entraña una llamada a devenir activos. Nos invita a ser felices y libres, a gobernarnos a nosotros mismos obedeciendo la ley del bien común, y gozar de ello junto con nuestros semejantes. Por eso, en el sistema spinozista, el individuo libre en nada piensa menos que en la muerte pues su sabiduría es una meditación sobre la vida, desea obrar, ser plenamente, a partir de comprender su naturaleza y la de todas las cosas. Así, la propuesta de este pensador involucra el desafío de maximizar nuestra potencia de existir, volviéndonos causa de nosotros mismos, de nuestras acciones, de las interacciones que entablamos con aquello que nos rodea. Esta intención de exhortar a los individuos a dejar atrás el padecimiento, este esfuerzo de mostrar el periplo hacia la felicidad atraviesa de manera transversal el sistema de Spinoza, constituyendo un eje central de su pensamiento. El presente libro se propone indagar el concepto de destino que sobrevuela su filosofía, explicitando en dónde radica el más alto bien, la máxima virtud asequible para un individuo y las consecuencias que aquello tendrá en su vida. El objetivo será analizar el proyecto ético que Spinoza despliega con el fin de mostrar que en él se brinda una respuesta a la pregunta por la libertad, por la felicidad, por la beatitud y que ésta puede ser comprendida de manera particular como un destino, vinculado precisamente a esa tarea ética que el pensamiento de este filósofo propone. Pero ese trabajo inevitablemente implicará, también, asumir la pregunta por los escollos que todos los individuos encontrarán en el camino en busca de su felicidad.

Los ejemplares de La destinación humana en Spinoza se encuentran disponibles en las librerías.