[PDF] Spinoza And The Philosophy Of Love eBook

Author : Michael Strawser
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
Page : 215 pages
File Size : 28,67 MB
Release : 2021-08-27
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 1793628602

GET BOOK

In Spinoza and the Philosophy of Love, Michael Strawser provides a new reading of Spinoza as a philosopher of love, and one who centers his thought on an ethically qualified conception of noble love. Strawser examines the threefold conception of love found in Spinoza’s Ethics and argues that what is most important for Spinoza’s philosophy is a unified conception of love centered on nobility (amor sive generositas). This active conception of love can conquer hatred and bring people together. Situating Spinoza’s philosophy of love within both Jewish and Western philosophical traditions, Strawser investigates questions in the philosophy of love together with Spinoza and thinkers such as Saadia Gaon, Maimonides, Leone Ebreo, Tullia d’Aragona, and René Descartes. He shows how Spinoza deepens our understanding of amorous perfectionism and how this reading of Spinoza’s philosophy of love serves as both a corrective to problematic readings, such as those found in Isaac Bashevis Singer and Emmanuel Levinas, and a counter to speciesism. With careful examination of Spinoza’s writings, Strawser demonstrates that the goal of his philosophy is best understood as the love of other people who are to be helped and united with in friendship. Ultimately, Spinoza’s philosophy of love calls for collective nobility.

Author : Herman de Dijn
Publisher : Leuven University Press
Page : 271 pages
File Size : 32,88 MB
Release : 2007
Category : Family & Relationships
ISBN : 905867651X

GET BOOK

"Love is joy with the accompanying idea of an external cause." Spinoza's definition of love manifests a major paradigm shift achieved by seventeenth-century Europe, in which the emotions, formerly seen as normative "forces of nature," were embraced by the new science of the mind.This shift has often been seen as a transition from a philosophy laden with implicit values and assumptions to a more scientific and value-free way of understanding human action. But is this rational approach really value-free? Today we tend to believe that values are inescapable, and that the descriptive-mechanical method implies its own set of values. Yet the assertion by Spinoza, Malebranche, Leibniz, and Enlightenment thinkers that love guides us to wisdom-and even that the love of a god who creates and maintains order and harmony in the world forms the core of ethical behavior-still resonates powerfully with us. It is, evidently, an idea Western culture is unwilling to relinquish.This collection of insightful essays offers a range of interesting perspectives on how the triumph of "reason" affected not only the scientific-philosophical understanding of the emotions and especially of love, but our everyday understanding as well.

Author : Clare Carlisle
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 288 pages
File Size : 31,76 MB
Release : 2021-09-07
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 069122420X

GET BOOK

A bold reevaluation of Spinoza that reveals his powerful, inclusive vision of religion for the modern age Spinoza is widely regarded as either a God-forsaking atheist or a God-intoxicated pantheist, but Clare Carlisle says that he was neither. In Spinoza’s Religion, she sets out a bold interpretation of Spinoza through a lucid new reading of his masterpiece, the Ethics. Putting the question of religion centre-stage but refusing to convert Spinozism to Christianity, Carlisle reveals that “being in God” unites Spinoza’s metaphysics and ethics. Spinoza’s Religion unfolds a powerful, inclusive philosophical vision for the modern age—one that is grounded in a profound questioning of how to live a joyful, fully human life. Like Spinoza himself, the Ethics doesn’t fit into any ready-made religious category. But Carlisle shows how it wrestles with the question of religion in strikingly original ways, responding both critically and constructively to the diverse, broadly Christian context in which Spinoza lived and worked. Philosophy itself, as Spinoza practiced it, became a spiritual endeavor that expressed his devotion to a truthful, virtuous way of life. Offering startling new insights into Spinoza’s famously enigmatic ideas about eternal life and the intellectual love of God, Carlisle uncovers a Spinozist religion that integrates self-knowledge, desire, practice, and embodied ethical life to reach toward our “highest happiness”—to rest in God. Seen through Carlisle’s eyes, the Ethics prompts us to rethink not only Spinoza but also religion itself.

Author : Erik Dreff
Publisher : de Gruyter
Page : 200 pages
File Size : 33,51 MB
Release : 2020-05
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9783110625578

GET BOOK

Despite widespread agreement as to its importance, the concept of the Love of God in Spinoza continues to frustrate readers and scholars alike. Offering a radical re-reading of Spinoza's works and thought as first and foremost a philosophy of love, Spinoza: A Philosopher of Love expands and recasts my dissertation to present a comprehensive study of Spinoza's entire oeuvre with the love of God as a central if not cardinal concept and value for Spinoza. In turn, the book then re-examines his metaphysical, political, and religious projects, arguing for a reorientation of the present prioritization of propositions and concepts in his works, especially in light of the fundamental axiological role the concept plays. In the end, rather than being the stumbling block upon which certain concepts or interpretations of Spinoza fall, the love of God, it is argued, both undergirds and orients much if not all of his thought, and becomes the key to a more coherent understanding of crucial concepts, his thought, works, and philosophy as a whole.

Author : Michael Strawser
Publisher : Lexington Books
Page : 227 pages
File Size : 42,15 MB
Release : 2015-10-08
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 0739184946

GET BOOK

Ironically, the philosophy of love has long been neglected by philosophers, so-called “lovers of wisdom,” who would seemingly need to understand how one best becomes a lover. In Kierkegaard and the Philosophy of Love, Michael Strawser shows that the philosophy of love lies at the heart of Kierkegaard’s writings, as he argues that the central issue of Kierkegaard’s authorship can and should be understood more broadly as the task of becoming a lover. Strawser starts by identifying the questions (How should I love the other? Is self-love possible? How can I love God?) and themes (love’s immediacy, intentionality, unity, and eternity) that are central to the philosophy of love, and he develops a rich context that includes analyses of the conceptions of love found in Plato, Spinoza, and Hegel, as well as prominent contemporary thinkers. Strawser provides an original and wide-ranging analysis of Kierkegaard’s writings—from the early The Concept of Irony and Edifying Discourses to the late The Moment, while maintaining the prominence of Works of Love— to demonstrate how Kierkegaard’s writings on love are relevant to the emerging study of the philosophy of love today. The most unique perspective of this work, however, is Strawser’s argument that Kierkegaard’s writings on love are most fruitfully understood within the context of a phenomenology of love. In interpreting Kierkegaard as a phenomenologist of love, Strawser claims that it is not Husserl and Heidegger that we should look to for a connection in the first instance, but rather Max Scheler, Dietrich von Hildebrand, Emmanuel Levinas, and most importantly, Jean-Luc Marion, who for the most part center their thinking on the phenomenological nature of love. Based on an analysis of the works of these thinkers together with Kierkegaard’s writings, Strawser argues that Kierkegaard presents readers with a first phenomenology of love, a point of view that serves as a unifying perspective throughout this work while also pointing to areas for future scholarship. Overall, this work brings seemingly divergent perspectives into a unity brought about through a focus on love—which is, after all, a unifying force.

Author : Andrea Sangiacomo
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
Page : 257 pages
File Size : 42,29 MB
Release : 2020-01-19
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 0198847904

GET BOOK

Spinoza's thought is at the centre of an ever growing interest. Spinoza's moral philosophy, in particular, points to a radical way of understanding how human beings can become free and enjoy supreme happiness. And yet, there is still much disagreement about how exactly Spinoza's recipe is supposed to work. For long time, Spinoza has been presented as an arch rationalist who would identify in the purely intellectual cultivation of reason the key for ethical progress. Andrea Sangiacomo offers a new understanding of Spinoza's project, by showing how he himself struggled during his career to develop a moral philosophy that could speak to human beings as they actually are (imperfect, passionate, often not very rational). Spinoza's views significantly evolved over time. In his early writings, Spinoza's account of ethical progress towards the Supreme Good relies mostly on the idea that the mind can build on its innate knowledge to resist the power of the passions. Although appropriate social conditions may support the individual's pursuit of the Supreme Good, achieving it does not depend essentially on social factors. In Spinoza's later writings, however, the emphasis shifts towards the mind's need to rely on appropriate forms of social cooperation. Reason becomes the mental expression of the way the human body interacts with external causes on the basis of some degree of agreement in nature with them. The greater the agreement, the greater the power of reason to adequately understand universal features as well as more specific traits of the external causes. In the case of human beings, certain kinds of social cooperation are crucial for the development of reason. This view has crucial ramifications for Spinoza's account of how individuals can progress towards the Supreme Good and how a political science based on Spinoza's principles can contribute to this goal.

Author : Roy Brand
Publisher : Columbia University Press
Page : 162 pages
File Size : 41,78 MB
Release : 2013
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 0231160445

GET BOOK

Since its inception, philosophy has struggled to perfect individual understanding through discussion and dialogue based in personal, poetic, or dramatic investigation. The positions of such philosophers as Socrates, Spinoza, Rousseau, Nietzsche, Foucault, and Derrida differ in almost every respect, yet these thinkers all share a common method of practicing philosophy--not as a detached, intellectual discipline, but as a worldly art. What is the love that turns into knowledge and how is the knowledge we seek already a form of love? Reading key texts from Socrates to Derrida, this book addresses the fundamental tension between love and knowledge that informs the history of Western philosophy. LoveKnowledge returns to the long tradition of philosophy as an exercise not only of the mind but also of the soul, asking whether philosophy can shape and inform our lives and communities.

Author : Moira Gatens
Publisher : Penn State Press
Page : 256 pages
File Size : 50,3 MB
Release : 2009
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 0271035161

GET BOOK

"A collection of essays on the metaphysical, political, theological, ethical and psychological writings of Spinoza. Examines the ways in which his philosophy presents a resource for the re-conceptualization of friendship, sexuality, politics and ethics in contemporary life"--Provided by publisher.

Author : Chantal Jaquet
Publisher : Edinburgh University Press
Page : 167 pages
File Size : 40,91 MB
Release : 2018-01-23
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 1474433200

GET BOOK

Revisiting the generally accepted notion of psycho-physical parallelism in Spinoza, Chantal Jaquet offers a new analysis of the relation between body and mind. Looking at a range of Spinoza's texts, and using an original methodology, she analyses their unity in action through affects, actions and passions.

Author : Robert C. Solomon
Publisher :
Page : 544 pages
File Size : 45,54 MB
Release : 1991
Category : Family & Relationships
ISBN :

GET BOOK

Solomon and Higgins have chosen excerpts from the great philosophical texts and combined them with the most exciting new work of philosophers writing today. It examines the mysteries of erotic love from a variety of philosophical perspectives and provides an impressive display of wisdom that the world's best thinkers have brought, and continue to bring, to the study of love.