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Cargando... Ethics, Including the Improvement of the Understandingpor Baruch Spinoza
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In the genre of Christian philosophers, Spinoza presents a geometric argument for the necessary existence of God as the one absolute substance underlying all other substance. From the necessity of God's existance, he derives the laws of existence, those of nature, and the ethical principles animating human conduct. In this sweeping volume that covers a wide range of topics from metaphysics, epistemology, and theology, Spinoza addresses the key concepts of freedom, the existence of evil, and the ultimate purpose of humanity. No se han encontrado descripciones de biblioteca. |
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Spinoza is often called a pantheist; while this is a suitable description to a degree, his pantheism is not consistent and is incredibly problematic. As far as mundane mechanics go, his pantheism works somewhat, although it is simplistic and, in my opinion, silly. He gets into trouble once he discourses on Divine nature. Unity or "pan-ness" is there left at the door and is no longer applicable without issues. Spinoza's god suffers from a fractured nature: his substance is removed from his attributes and his attributes are subject to his nature. God isn't free in Spinoza's system, He is subject to His own nature. This must entail, I suppose, that His attributes and His substance are somehow different from His nature. What we have is a god that is made up of various parts. What his nature is, I can't quite say because I didn't note any discussion of it in here as such. Spinoza believes that the world of causal mechanics shares in God's substance. His argument seemed to hinge on the idea that an infinite substance cannot be bounded, so there can be no other substance save one, and that is God's ultimately. Of course, Spinoza does seem to make distinctions between God's infinite attributes and His substance which must become finite at some point. Spinoza does not elaborate on how infinite attributes/substance can become finite. It seems that at some point, most likely in God, infinite substance becomes finite as thought and extension. All of this makes Spinoza's pantheism problematic. He simply removes a multiplicity of substances from one place, namely, from a mundane mechanical universe, and places multiplicity within God Himself. Regardless of whether or not Spinoza does some sleight of hand and uses different terms to describe God's nature, his god is, ultimately, a divided and multiform god; so pantheism is only a fitting description of Spinozism with very particular caveats and provisos.
I was probably at my most impatient while reading Spinoza's discourse regarding emotions. Here he vacillates quite a bit. All emotions in Spinoza's causal universe are simply reactionary states. Love is both a negative and positive emotion for Spinoza. It's positive when it's intellectual (whatever the hell that means) and negative when it entails compassion and pity, which is usually included in the typical definition of love. I should enlighten the reader that Spinoza is rather adamant about using his own definitions of words. This is something he tries to get across at the very beginning of the works included here. His definitions are sometimes quite equivocal though, so consistency is a problem for Spinoza; especially in his discussion of emotions. As far as love goes, one must note that Spinoza's definition is not only idiosyncratic but pretty ridiculous. He attempts to make love both an emotion and not an emotion. He more than once claims that good and evil are simply pleasure and pain and nothing more. How one can say that pleasure is intellectual, I don't quite know, but suffice it to say that Spinoza's equivocal and ambivalent use of terminology would never aid someone in putting his ethics into practical use. Also, his ethical system is so apathetic that I can't see it being anything but a negotiable and capricious ethics.
Spinoza helped foment deistic thought. So I suppose he holds a unique position in that regard. There was a time when I identified with deism. I now see it for what it is. Deism denies God in practice but accepts Him in theory. Atheism denies God in both theory and in practice. While I think deism is certainly far more intelligent than atheism, it is practically speaking no different; so it's little wonder that deism gave way to atheism during the age of enlightenment. Spinoza is a deist's theologian. Since I left deism a long time ago, I don't see much that speaks to me now in this kind of writing.
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