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Spinoza. Pantheism, anyone?

one of my biggest regrets. my university spent about two weeks reading his works. i spent about three hours, as rest of my time was filled in that period with playing call of duty online. prior to that i wasn't playing computer games for like 5 years, i thought i grew up etc.

still, i give him not crap.

NOT CRAP.

Though his methods are/were seriously flawed, Spinoza in his thinking about ethics, human psychology (a domain that wasn't on any scientific map at the time), politics and the advancement of philosophy, was a truly forward-thinking guy. He pre-dated Nietzsche in his insistence that there is no real, ontological difference between Good and Evil, and Wittgenstein in his programme of clearing philosophy of all the hocus-pocus metaphysical fireworks. These are incredible efforts, that are testimony to the modern leanings of a truly enlightened man.

What I like even better is the fact that he never piped down. Everything Spinoza did breathed stubbornness and radical thinking, and he seemed perfectly content to devote his life to his thinking and his humble work as a lens-grinder, outside of the cultural and scientific communities that expelled him.

"We" are really proud to have had him.

My favorite with the exception of Aristotle.

Pantheism is right.

NOT CRAP.

not crap, from what i can tell (i have some of his texts, and read that mini book on him by deleuze, but i have yet to immerse myself in spinoza's writing.)

Chapter Two wrote:

scott wrote:I remember learning in a class in college called "Einstein : His Theory and His Humanity" that Einstein, on God, said that the concept of God that he thought to be the best representation of his idea of God was that put forth by Spinoza. From what I've read, Spinoza is a Rationalist. I personally tried to read some Spinoza, and found it a rough read.

He's a pantheist. His God is nature, if you read between the lines. He's alright, Spinoza is. Excommunicated by the Jews. In Holland, for fucks sake.

I also like the fact that his day job was lens making. He helped people to see clearly.

sunlore wrote:He pre-dated Nietzsche in his insistence that there is no real, ontological difference between Good and Evil

OK, but is it true? What 'good' is it then to look at Good and Evil from an ontological standpoint?

Chapter Two wrote:I also like the fact that his day job was lens making. He helped people to see clearly.

Or fry insects? O logocentric metaphor!

Juche wrote:

sunlore wrote:He pre-dated Nietzsche in his insistence that there is no real, ontological difference between Good and Evil

OK, but is it true? What 'good' is it then to look at Good and Evil from an ontological standpoint?

Isn't the point that it doesn't do any good at all?

Allow me to plug my teacher's latest work:

Spinoza, Benedict. Theologico-Political Treatise [1670]. Translated from the Latin, retaining Spinoza's original Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek and Syriac citations, with Glossary, Indexes, and Interpretive Essay. Focus Philosophical Library. Newburyport, Mass.: Pullins, 2004.

As an interpreter of the Bible: Crap.
As founder of modern Biblical criticism: Not Crap because of his success at understanding and manipulating for his own ends.

Success doesn't always mean correctness and most certainly doesn't always mean moral progress.

I'm currently quite taken with Deleuze's writings on Spinoza's three kinds of knowledge, as found in Ethics. It seems that Spinoza leaves open a theological window for mankind, in order to touch the eternal. Which I think makes him some kind of mystic, but a mystic who was interested in a life lived in moderation and grounded in the present (in fact , he rejects the ascetic, calling it hateful, perhaps referring to introspective contemplation that closets itself from the world). Despite being a heretical Jew, there seems to be a Calvinist overlay and early-capitalist bent to it, as well.