Spinoza Essays

  • Spinoza And Free Will

    986 Words  | 2 Pages

    go on and by is from philosophers and every person who has their two cents to fill in. In this discussion of philosophy there will be points made for and against the establishment of free will and basis for judgement of free will exists or not. Spinoza, Paul, Augustine, Luther have all grappled with this question of free will for many years. What has been said goes to a religious side. Which has been believed of an omnipotent God who will preordain who would be saved and who would be lost. In the

  • Baruch Spinoza

    1948 Words  | 4 Pages

    Baruch Spinoza The task of simply just surviving is for most of us a handful in itself in this life. However, only a few in a life time choose not to be satisfied with only just survival rather they assume the yoke of redefining life for themselves and for others. In philosophy of religion, pantheism is usually in conflict with traditional religious authority, which claims that the pantheistic belief is nothing more than a blasphemous form of idolatrous worship. A man by the name Benedictus (Baruch)

  • Leibniz And Spinoza As Applied To Baseball

    1559 Words  | 4 Pages

    Essay 2 First we will consider the assigned baseball scenario under Leibniz’s system of metaphysics. In the baseball scenario, the aggregate of the player, bat, pitch, swing and all the other substances in the universe are one and all contingent. There are other possible things, to be sure; but there are also other possible universes that could have existed but did not. The totality of contingent things, the bat, the player, etc., themselves do not explain themselves. Here Leibniz involves the principle

  • Spinoza: Clarifications and Criticisms on Freedom

    2005 Words  | 5 Pages

    Baruch de Spinoza, or as later known by Benedictus de Spinoza, was a 17th century philosopher that came under much hostility because of his renunciation of the accepted religious perceptions of god. This is not to say that Spinoza repudiated god’s existence, on the contrary, Spinoza considered himself to believe in god, but in a different more natural sense. Spinoza received much denunciation and criticism for his beliefs from religious figure heads. He was excommunicated from the Jewish community

  • Spinoza's Philosophical Psychotherapy

    3128 Words  | 7 Pages

    Spinoza's Philosophical Psychotherapy missing works cited ABSTRACT: Spinoza's philosophy has a practical aim. The Ethics can be interpreted as a guide to a happy, intellectually flourishing life. Spinoza gives us principles about how to guard against the power of passions which prevent the mind from attaining understanding. In what follows, I consider Spinoza's techniques for guarding against the passions by turning to Jonathan Bennett's criticisms of Spinozistic psychotherapy. Bennett finds

  • Comparing Spinoza’s Ethics and Dostoyevsky’s Notes from the Underground

    2477 Words  | 5 Pages

    Comparing Spinoza’s Ethics and Dostoyevsky’s Notes from the Underground Perhaps my choice of the subject may come across as a little eccentric, to say the least. To appear quaint and whimsical, however, is not my intention, so I figured as an introduction, I would explain my choice. From so far as I can tell, philosophy, or the search for truth, has all too often been equated with certainty. This quality of certainty has been especially magnified in the rationalist branch of philosophy. Starting

  • Substance

    1077 Words  | 3 Pages

    same in reality as they are in our mind? What are these substances? Are they even substances? If they are real then why are they, and what are they? Many great philosophers tackled these questions. Philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Spinoza, and Berkeley. All of them came up with an idea of what substance is. Plato’s whole idea of the forms are what would be considered substance. The form is the standard pattern or ideal model of the object or action that’s being named or mentioned.

  • Skepticism and the Philosophy of Language in Early Modern Thought

    3311 Words  | 7 Pages

    early XVIth century has been considered one of the major forces in the development of modern thought, especially as regards the discussion about the nature of knowledge and the sciences. Richard Popkin in his History of Skepticism from Erasmus to Spinoza (1979) has shown that skeptical arguments were influential in the attack against traditional scholastic conceptions of science, opening the way to the development of the new scientific method. The dispute between those who embraced skepticism and

  • Philosophic Principles of Creativity

    1875 Words  | 4 Pages

    Philosophic Principles of Creativity ABSTRACT: The principle of universal significance of the creative process is promoted in this thesis. The principles of the ecology of creation and of the subject's humanistic orientation of the cognitive and practical activity, will also be investigated. 1. Nowadays the promotion of a new world outlook paradigm of global creativity has a place. The understanding of the nature of creation in the history of philosophy has always been connected with the

  • Essay On Spinoza

    1024 Words  | 3 Pages

    The metaphysical argument that is made by Spinoza has several interesting and different approaches then many other philosophers of his time. One of the main interesting arguments he raises is in his view of his monist metaphysics of God/Nature. In a brief overview this argument is to state that there is only one substance with infinite attributes, finite modes, and is God/Nature. Spinoza's substance monism argument takes place in his writings of "Ethics I". In this argument Spinoza's views God and

  • Spinoza Proposition 8

    1048 Words  | 3 Pages

    objection in the attempt to prove an instance by which two substances contain a similar attribute, yet differ in nature. Under these considerations, I conclude that Spinoza’s thesis is mistaken. In the argument in the second Scholium to Proposition 8, Spinoza makes two claims which have the following form: First, there is necessarily for each individual existent thing a definite cause that accounts for its existence. Second, the definite cause for the existence of a thing must either be contained in the

  • David Hume And Spinoza

    1816 Words  | 4 Pages

    Concerning Human Understanding and Benedict De Spinoza in The Ethics run noteworthy parallels in about metaphysics and human nature. Spinoza and Hume share opinions of apriori knowledge and free will. For human nature, similar concepts of the imagination and morality arise. Although both philosophers derive similar conclusions in their philosophy, they could not be further distanced from one another in their concepts of God. Regarded as an atheist, Spinoza argues that God is the simple substance which

  • Analysis Of Spinoza's Argument Regarding The Existence Of God

    1649 Words  | 4 Pages

    Distinctions among past and present philosophers regarding the existence of God, as well as how God is viewed, has provided us with numerous thought processes that allow us to trigger theories of our own. René Descartes and Baruch (or Benedict) Spinoza are two modern philosophers that have views of God that conflict with one another. This paper will examine the distinction between Descartes and Spinoza’s idea of God as an infinite substance. Additionally, I will analyze Spinoza’s argument regarding

  • Idealism: Personal Philosophy

    1028 Words  | 3 Pages

    Through ... ... middle of paper ... ...ited "80 Foot Buddha Statue In Bodh Gaya Great Buddha Statue." World News. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 May 2014. "American Idiot." By Green Day Songfacts. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 May 2014. "Baruch Spinoza, "Human Beings Are Determined"" Baruch Spinoza, "Human Beings Are Determined" N.p., n.d. Web. 12 May 2014. Davis, Paul. "FAMOUS POETRY ONLINE." : Perception Your Reality. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 May 2014. Leiter, Brian. "Nietzsche's Moral and Political Philosophy." Stanford

  • Monism: An Argument For Monism-Spinoza

    799 Words  | 2 Pages

    argument for Monism-Spinoza In the beginning of the course of unraveling 17th and 18th century profound philosophers we became acquainted with Descartes dualism, by analyzing that extension according to Descartes are two of God’s distinct features in which we ought to perceive. Not only did Spinoza toss the conception that God actively alters the earth through Descartes proclaimed “natural laws”, but unlike Descartes he believed God to be the only definite substance. For Spinoza God and God’s creation

  • Solving Ethical Dilemmas

    1512 Words  | 4 Pages

    the ethical dilemma being presented is as followed: A man cheats on his wife early in their marriage. Twenty years later he wants to “come clean” about his infidelity. Should he? The ethical interpretations of philosophers Aristotle, Benedict de Spinoza, Immanuel Kant, and myself will be addressed regarding this particular dilemma. Aristotle sought a philosophy of happiness which would be applicable to each individual man. He believed virtue is never absolute. In other words, one rule can never

  • Descartes vs. Spinoza on Substance

    2323 Words  | 5 Pages

    complicated manner, but Spinoza tried to answer this question in an exceptional way simply by describing God and His essence. Based on Spinoza’s views, God’s qualities can be referred to as attributes and modes are merely affections of a substance. This paper will provide a detailed view of Spinoza’s key ontological definition of God as the only substance, his attributes, and their co-relations. The study goes further to explore the major scholarly argument between Spinoza and Descartes, in regard

  • Metaphysical Thoughts During the Enlightenment Period

    1774 Words  | 4 Pages

    literature. Fahrenheit was building his first mercury thermometer. The Boston Tea Party and the French Revolution occurred. However, some of the most drastic changes occurred in thought. Prior to the eighteenth century, thinkers such as Locke, Spinoza, Descartes, and Hobbes dominated Western thought to the extent that they changed the way people viewed the world. Consequently, much of the eighteenth century philosophy, as well as the general thought, was a product of these precursors. Either

  • Analysis Of Spinoza 's ' The Ethics '

    1092 Words  | 3 Pages

    could not create a world in which evil prospers because He cares about goodness, benevolence etc., but the point remains that God could have created things differently; God could have created other worlds. Spinoza, however, strongly disagrees with this position. In 1p33s2 of the Ethics, Spinoza puts forth a couple of arguments that separate him from the tradition. Spinoza’s best argument against the traditional view in this scholium is that “All things depend on God’s power. So in order for things

  • Spinoza Argument On Substance Monism

    1197 Words  | 3 Pages

    Spinoza argued for substance monism. For the purpose of this paper, I will discuss Spinoza’s argument for substance monism. I will then explore how Spinoza’s view of substance monism is relevant to absurdist claims that there is no meaning in existence. I will then raise an issue with Spinoza’s seventh axiom. I will then conclude with why Spinoza’s substance monism is not entirely convincing in large part because of his definition of God and his seventh axiom. Substance monism is the claim