Quote:
Originally Posted by queenbeesteph
btw - Spinoza's pretty cool (if you like math hahaha!) since he tried to demonstrate how to lead a good, moral life mathematically [...] .
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I neither want to seem confrontational nor do I want to irritate anybody, who might rightfully think this is perhaps not the right board or thread to get into detailed philosophical discussions. But feeling 'among friends' to go clear and open about what I think, I have to say a couple of things about Spinoza and Nietzsche..and leave it there, not to offend or bore any one.
Spinoza, like other rationalist philosophers (Descartes and Leibniz) did follow what is called
geometrical method to set up the logical structure of his arguments- yet his proof of God is not mathematical in any sense of the word. It's quite a twisted and baffling conception, Spinoza's notion of God, that he's remains as the only philosopher of West that's been called atheist, pantheist, monist and pluralist.. all at once
Another thing that makes it even more interesting is that
Spinoza's ethics is absolutely contra any notion of morality, or whatever could be put under this umbrella term. Think about it: How are we to think of God and divinity, without moral interpretation? Why would you anyway, if there's no punishment or reward waiting you? What's a notion of ethics without morality? And why would ethics matter, if there's no judgements of moral kind? Spinoza was expelled (?) from Judaism and Catholic Europe made fun of him, printing his picture on dish-plates of royal family dining sets, with poems ridiculing his 'crazy' notions like God=Nature=Man=Universe=ALL=IS=necessity (totally reductionist but definitely not a false formulation, humbly yours)
I think Spinoza might be a significant reading for Ben due to 3 things: 1) Spinoza's particular notion of Nature 2) what is technically called
conatus in Lt- a crucial notion of his that somewhat combines meanings of power, perfection, force and will in English language. It is something that not only individual creations express, but also Nature expresses it as well (sounds familiar?) and finally 3) passions understood as expressions of one's extent of conatus. Being also a political thinker, Spinoza also had a treatise in which he discusses possible systems of social and political communities, their strengths and weaknesses and their life-span, according to the level of
conatus they hold. A very beneficial reading of ethics, psychology and politics..all in one. I thought some of his stuff might come handy for Ben
