Dave Ward was kind enough to let me teach an evening philosophy class this semester. My long worked on philosophy textbook, by the way, is almost out in electronic form. Whether it ever takes on print form depends on the market. Times, they are a changing.
In any case, below is 30 minute video I did overviewing Enlightenment epistemology. Although we're meeting for class on Adobe Connect tonight, most Thursday nights you could follow some of our banter by the Twitter hashtag #180cphilosophy. Tonight, though, we're online in a more private environment.
Showing posts with label Spinoza. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Spinoza. Show all posts
Thursday, March 27, 2014
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Spinoza Quote...
Quoted in Moo's James commentary: "I have often wondered that persons who make boast of professing the Christian religion -- namely love, joy, peace, temperance, and charity to all men (sic) -- should quarrel with such rancorous animosity and display daily towards one another such bitter hatred, that this, rather than the virtues which they profess, is the readiest criteria of their faith."
Spinoza lived in the 1600s and was a Jewish philosopher.
Spinoza lived in the 1600s and was a Jewish philosopher.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Famous Rationalists
Here is the text box on famous rationalists. You can probably see why I've relegated these particulars to a text box. Any suggestions welcome.
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Plato (ca. 427-347): Plato famously suggested that the world around us that we experience with our senses is far less real than the world we can access with our minds (see chapter 7, What Is Reality?). The world of our senses is a world of shadows cast by the truest world, the world of ideas. The things we experience with our senses are like copies or images of the ideal patterns that we can only contemplate with our minds. Our minds know these ideas because our souls had access to them before they became imprisoned in our bodies. Learning is thus remembering this innate knowledge rather than a matter of gaining new knowledge.
René Descartes (1596-1650): Descartes is known as the founder of modern philosophy primarily for the way he drew attention to the question of certainty in what we know. He notoriously set out to doubt everything he could doubt and to accept as true only those things that he could conceive clearly and distinctly. The perceptions of his senses were the first to go, securing him his place among the rationalists. Descartes suggested that I could be dreaming what I think I am experiencing. Even in my thoughts, an evil demon could be manipulating me. What I cannot doubt, he famously suggested, is that I am thinking. “I think; therefore, I am.”
Thinking that he had established a point of certainty, he proceeded to argue that God existed, because any conception of God “clearly and distinctly” includes the idea that He is a necessary Being. And if God exists, he is not an evil demon who would try to deceive us by making us perceive the world outside our minds differently than it is. Thus I can trust my mind as it thinks about the world outside it.
Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677): Spinoza took from Descartes the idea that truth is a matter of what we can conceive of clearly and distinctly. But whereas Descartes saw knowing as a matter of our souls understanding a material world outside our minds, Spinoza believed that everything was one basic thing, God. The truths we associate with our thought and the truths we associate with the world are both truths about “God” that we can discover through reason. Experience is not necessary to learn any truth. All such truth is predetermined, and understanding not least involves coming to accept it. In this Spinoza partially resembles the Stoics, although he did not oppose emotions to the extent they did. My emotions also involve truths that I must accept.
Gottfried W. Leibniz (1646-1716): The depth of Leibniz’ rationalism did not come through clearly until his unpublished writings became better known in the 1800’s. Leibniz’ two principles of reason were already known: his “law of contradiction” and “principle of sufficient reason.” Truths of reasoning are truths we can know apart from experience. The law of contradiction says that two contradictory claims cannot both be true, and we know this must be the case even before we have any relevant experiences. Truths of reasoning are thus necessary truths.
On the other hand, principles of sufficient reason relate to truths of fact. These truths are contingent rather than necessary truths—they did not have to be true but turn out to be. As human beings, we come to know these sorts of truths through our experiences. Leibniz’ unpublished writings have shed considerable light on what he was thinking here. For Leibniz, all the things that happen to us in life are dictated by reasons we will never fully know. Of all the possible things that could be, some cannot coexist because of the law of contradiction. Those things that do exist are the greatest number of possible things that could coexist.
In the end, Leibniz followed Spinoza in believing that all truths are already determined and known by God. Experience thus does not contribute to truth, even if we as humans seem to come to know truth by this path. In theory, all truth could be known through reason alone.
_____________________
Plato (ca. 427-347): Plato famously suggested that the world around us that we experience with our senses is far less real than the world we can access with our minds (see chapter 7, What Is Reality?). The world of our senses is a world of shadows cast by the truest world, the world of ideas. The things we experience with our senses are like copies or images of the ideal patterns that we can only contemplate with our minds. Our minds know these ideas because our souls had access to them before they became imprisoned in our bodies. Learning is thus remembering this innate knowledge rather than a matter of gaining new knowledge.
René Descartes (1596-1650): Descartes is known as the founder of modern philosophy primarily for the way he drew attention to the question of certainty in what we know. He notoriously set out to doubt everything he could doubt and to accept as true only those things that he could conceive clearly and distinctly. The perceptions of his senses were the first to go, securing him his place among the rationalists. Descartes suggested that I could be dreaming what I think I am experiencing. Even in my thoughts, an evil demon could be manipulating me. What I cannot doubt, he famously suggested, is that I am thinking. “I think; therefore, I am.”
Thinking that he had established a point of certainty, he proceeded to argue that God existed, because any conception of God “clearly and distinctly” includes the idea that He is a necessary Being. And if God exists, he is not an evil demon who would try to deceive us by making us perceive the world outside our minds differently than it is. Thus I can trust my mind as it thinks about the world outside it.
Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677): Spinoza took from Descartes the idea that truth is a matter of what we can conceive of clearly and distinctly. But whereas Descartes saw knowing as a matter of our souls understanding a material world outside our minds, Spinoza believed that everything was one basic thing, God. The truths we associate with our thought and the truths we associate with the world are both truths about “God” that we can discover through reason. Experience is not necessary to learn any truth. All such truth is predetermined, and understanding not least involves coming to accept it. In this Spinoza partially resembles the Stoics, although he did not oppose emotions to the extent they did. My emotions also involve truths that I must accept.
Gottfried W. Leibniz (1646-1716): The depth of Leibniz’ rationalism did not come through clearly until his unpublished writings became better known in the 1800’s. Leibniz’ two principles of reason were already known: his “law of contradiction” and “principle of sufficient reason.” Truths of reasoning are truths we can know apart from experience. The law of contradiction says that two contradictory claims cannot both be true, and we know this must be the case even before we have any relevant experiences. Truths of reasoning are thus necessary truths.
On the other hand, principles of sufficient reason relate to truths of fact. These truths are contingent rather than necessary truths—they did not have to be true but turn out to be. As human beings, we come to know these sorts of truths through our experiences. Leibniz’ unpublished writings have shed considerable light on what he was thinking here. For Leibniz, all the things that happen to us in life are dictated by reasons we will never fully know. Of all the possible things that could be, some cannot coexist because of the law of contradiction. Those things that do exist are the greatest number of possible things that could coexist.
In the end, Leibniz followed Spinoza in believing that all truths are already determined and known by God. Experience thus does not contribute to truth, even if we as humans seem to come to know truth by this path. In theory, all truth could be known through reason alone.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Bertrand Russell on Spinoza
Today has been almost completely a philosophy day, as I've buried myself in the particulars of Descartes, Leibniz, and Spinoza. I've largely relegated them to a textbox on famous rationalists (which I'll probably post later tonight).
Anyway, I was skimming through Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy on this triad of rationalists. I find him very readable today, although I didn't twenty years ago.
Russell (early 20th century) was of course an atheist, but a friendly one. What I mean is, there does not seem to be an edge to his thought. Spinoza (1600's) was not an atheist proper, but a pantheist. In other words, he did not believe in a personal God.
I was just struck by a number of comments Russell makes in his chapter on Spinoza, and when the striking hit a critical mass, I felt like sharing some excerpts. Keep in mind that he published this history in 1945 around the age of 73, having been a professor at Cambridge, the second most glorious university in the world after the University of Durham :-) World War 2 was just winding up.
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"Spinoza (1634-77) is the noblest and most lovable of the great philosophers. Intellectually, some others have surpassed him, but ethically he is supreme. As a natural consequence, he was considered, during his lifetime and for a century after his death, a man of appalling wickedness. He was born a Jew, but the Jews excommunicated him. Christians abhorred him equally; although his whole philosophy is dominated by the idea of God, the orthodox accused him of atheism" (569).
"... The whole of this metaphysic is impossible to accept... And the concept of substance, upon which Spinoza relies, is one that neither science nor philosophy can nowadays accept" (578).
"But when it comes to Spinoza's ethics, we feel--or at least I feel--that something, though not everything, can be accepted...
"Take for instance, death: nothing that a man can do will make him immortal, and it is therefore futile to spend time in fears and lamentations over the fact that we must die... What should be ... avoided, is a certain kind of anxiety or terror... The same considerations apply to all other purely personal misfortunes.
"But how about misfortunes of people whom you love? Let us think of some of the things that are likely to happen in our time to inhabitants of Europe or China. Suppose you are a Jew, and your family has been massacred. Suppose you are an underground worker against the Nazis, and your wife has been shot because you could not be caught. Suppose your husband, for some purely imaginary crime, has been sent to forced labour in the Arctic, and has died of cruelty and starvation. Suppose your daughter has been raped and then killed by enemy soldiers. Ought you, in these circumstances, to preserve a philosophic calm? (578-79)
"If you follow Christ's teaching, you will say, 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.' I have known Quakers who could have said this sincerely and profoundly, and whom I admired because they could. But before giving admiration one must be very sure that the misfortune is felt as deeply as it should be. One cannot accept the attitude of some among the Stoics, who said, 'What does it matter to me if my family suffer? I can still be virtuous' ... the Christian principle does not inculcate calm, but an ardent love even towards the worst of men. There is nothing to be said against it except that it is too difficult for most of us to practice sincerely.
"The primitive reaction to such disasters is revenge... Nor can it be wholly condemned... But on the other side it must be said that revenge is a very dangerous motive... A life dominated by a single passion is a narrow life, incompatible with every kind of wisdom. Revenge as such is therefore not the best reaction to injury."
"As we saw, he believes that hatred can be overcome by love... I wish I could believe this, but I cannot, except in exceptional cases where the person hating is completely in the power of the person who refuses to hate in return... (580)
"The problem for Spinoza is easier than it is for one who has no belief in the goodness of the universe" [like Russell himself].
Anyway, I was skimming through Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy on this triad of rationalists. I find him very readable today, although I didn't twenty years ago.
Russell (early 20th century) was of course an atheist, but a friendly one. What I mean is, there does not seem to be an edge to his thought. Spinoza (1600's) was not an atheist proper, but a pantheist. In other words, he did not believe in a personal God.
I was just struck by a number of comments Russell makes in his chapter on Spinoza, and when the striking hit a critical mass, I felt like sharing some excerpts. Keep in mind that he published this history in 1945 around the age of 73, having been a professor at Cambridge, the second most glorious university in the world after the University of Durham :-) World War 2 was just winding up.
_______________
"Spinoza (1634-77) is the noblest and most lovable of the great philosophers. Intellectually, some others have surpassed him, but ethically he is supreme. As a natural consequence, he was considered, during his lifetime and for a century after his death, a man of appalling wickedness. He was born a Jew, but the Jews excommunicated him. Christians abhorred him equally; although his whole philosophy is dominated by the idea of God, the orthodox accused him of atheism" (569).
"... The whole of this metaphysic is impossible to accept... And the concept of substance, upon which Spinoza relies, is one that neither science nor philosophy can nowadays accept" (578).
"But when it comes to Spinoza's ethics, we feel--or at least I feel--that something, though not everything, can be accepted...
"Take for instance, death: nothing that a man can do will make him immortal, and it is therefore futile to spend time in fears and lamentations over the fact that we must die... What should be ... avoided, is a certain kind of anxiety or terror... The same considerations apply to all other purely personal misfortunes.
"But how about misfortunes of people whom you love? Let us think of some of the things that are likely to happen in our time to inhabitants of Europe or China. Suppose you are a Jew, and your family has been massacred. Suppose you are an underground worker against the Nazis, and your wife has been shot because you could not be caught. Suppose your husband, for some purely imaginary crime, has been sent to forced labour in the Arctic, and has died of cruelty and starvation. Suppose your daughter has been raped and then killed by enemy soldiers. Ought you, in these circumstances, to preserve a philosophic calm? (578-79)
"If you follow Christ's teaching, you will say, 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.' I have known Quakers who could have said this sincerely and profoundly, and whom I admired because they could. But before giving admiration one must be very sure that the misfortune is felt as deeply as it should be. One cannot accept the attitude of some among the Stoics, who said, 'What does it matter to me if my family suffer? I can still be virtuous' ... the Christian principle does not inculcate calm, but an ardent love even towards the worst of men. There is nothing to be said against it except that it is too difficult for most of us to practice sincerely.
"The primitive reaction to such disasters is revenge... Nor can it be wholly condemned... But on the other side it must be said that revenge is a very dangerous motive... A life dominated by a single passion is a narrow life, incompatible with every kind of wisdom. Revenge as such is therefore not the best reaction to injury."
"As we saw, he believes that hatred can be overcome by love... I wish I could believe this, but I cannot, except in exceptional cases where the person hating is completely in the power of the person who refuses to hate in return... (580)
"The problem for Spinoza is easier than it is for one who has no belief in the goodness of the universe" [like Russell himself].
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