Michael Ayers (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780197264201
- eISBN:
- 9780191734670
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197264201.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
This book comprises three main chapters on Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz, with extensive responses. It explores the common ground of the great early-modern rationalist theories, and provides an ...
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This book comprises three main chapters on Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz, with extensive responses. It explores the common ground of the great early-modern rationalist theories, and provides an examination of the ways in which the mainstream Platonic tradition permeates these theories. One chapter identifies characteristically Platonic themes in Descartes’s cosmology and metaphysics, finding them associated with two distinct, even opposed attitudes to nature and the human condition, one ancient and ‘contemplative’, the other modern and ‘controlling’. It finds the same tension in Descartes’s moral theory, and believes that it remains unresolved in present-day ethics. Was Spinoza a Neoplatonist theist, critical Cartesian, or naturalistic materialist? The second chapter argues that he was all of these. Analysis of his system reveals how Spinoza employed Neoplatonist monism against Descartes’s Platonist pluralism. Yet the terminology — like the physics — is Cartesian. And within this Platonic-Cartesian shell Spinoza developed a rigorously naturalistic metaphysics and even, Ayers claims, an effectually empiricist epistemology. The final chapter focuses on the Rationalists’ arguments for the Platonist, anti-Empiricist principle of ‘the priority of the perfect’, i.e. the principle that finite attributes are to be understood through corresponding perfections of God, rather than the reverse. It finds the given arguments unsatisfactory but stimulating, and offers a development of one of Leibniz’s for consideration. These chapters receive informed and constructive criticism and development at the hands of, respectively, Douglas Hedley, Sarah Hutton and Maria Rosa Antognazza.Less
This book comprises three main chapters on Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz, with extensive responses. It explores the common ground of the great early-modern rationalist theories, and provides an examination of the ways in which the mainstream Platonic tradition permeates these theories. One chapter identifies characteristically Platonic themes in Descartes’s cosmology and metaphysics, finding them associated with two distinct, even opposed attitudes to nature and the human condition, one ancient and ‘contemplative’, the other modern and ‘controlling’. It finds the same tension in Descartes’s moral theory, and believes that it remains unresolved in present-day ethics. Was Spinoza a Neoplatonist theist, critical Cartesian, or naturalistic materialist? The second chapter argues that he was all of these. Analysis of his system reveals how Spinoza employed Neoplatonist monism against Descartes’s Platonist pluralism. Yet the terminology — like the physics — is Cartesian. And within this Platonic-Cartesian shell Spinoza developed a rigorously naturalistic metaphysics and even, Ayers claims, an effectually empiricist epistemology. The final chapter focuses on the Rationalists’ arguments for the Platonist, anti-Empiricist principle of ‘the priority of the perfect’, i.e. the principle that finite attributes are to be understood through corresponding perfections of God, rather than the reverse. It finds the given arguments unsatisfactory but stimulating, and offers a development of one of Leibniz’s for consideration. These chapters receive informed and constructive criticism and development at the hands of, respectively, Douglas Hedley, Sarah Hutton and Maria Rosa Antognazza.
Michael Lebuffe
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195383539
- eISBN:
- 9780199870530
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195383539.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
This book defends a comprehensive interpretation of Spinoza's enlightened vision of human excellence, including his theories of good and evil, virtue, perfection, and freedom. Spinoza holds that what ...
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This book defends a comprehensive interpretation of Spinoza's enlightened vision of human excellence, including his theories of good and evil, virtue, perfection, and freedom. Spinoza holds that what is fundamental to human morality is the fact that we find things to be good or evil, not what we take those designations to mean. When we come to understand the conditions under which we act—that is, when we come to understand the sorts of beings that we are and the ways in which we interact with things in the world—then we can recast traditional moral notions in ways that help us to attain more of what we find to be valuable. For Spinoza, we find value in greater activity. Two hazards impede the search for value. First, we need to know and acquire the means to be good. In this respect, Spinoza's theory is a great deal like Hobbes's: we strive to be active, and in order to do so we need food, security, health, and other necessary components of a decent life. There is another hazard, however, that is more subtle. On Spinoza's theory of the passions, we can misjudge our own natures and fail to understand the sorts of beings that we really are. So we can misjudge what is good and might even seek ends that are evil. Spinoza's account of human nature is thus much deeper and darker than Hobbes's: we are not well known to ourselves, and the self‐knowledge that is the foundation of virtue and freedom is elusive and fragile.Less
This book defends a comprehensive interpretation of Spinoza's enlightened vision of human excellence, including his theories of good and evil, virtue, perfection, and freedom. Spinoza holds that what is fundamental to human morality is the fact that we find things to be good or evil, not what we take those designations to mean. When we come to understand the conditions under which we act—that is, when we come to understand the sorts of beings that we are and the ways in which we interact with things in the world—then we can recast traditional moral notions in ways that help us to attain more of what we find to be valuable. For Spinoza, we find value in greater activity. Two hazards impede the search for value. First, we need to know and acquire the means to be good. In this respect, Spinoza's theory is a great deal like Hobbes's: we strive to be active, and in order to do so we need food, security, health, and other necessary components of a decent life. There is another hazard, however, that is more subtle. On Spinoza's theory of the passions, we can misjudge our own natures and fail to understand the sorts of beings that we really are. So we can misjudge what is good and might even seek ends that are evil. Spinoza's account of human nature is thus much deeper and darker than Hobbes's: we are not well known to ourselves, and the self‐knowledge that is the foundation of virtue and freedom is elusive and fragile.
Steven Nadler
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780199247073
- eISBN:
- 9780191598074
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199247072.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
This is a study of the reasons behind Spinoza's excommunication from the Portuguese–Jewish community of Amsterdam in 1656. The central question in the book is how and why did the issue of the ...
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This is a study of the reasons behind Spinoza's excommunication from the Portuguese–Jewish community of Amsterdam in 1656. The central question in the book is how and why did the issue of the immortality of the soul play a role in the decision to excommunicate Spinoza. The work begins with a discussion of the nature of cherem or banning within Judaism, and in the Amsterdam community, in particular, as well as of a number of possible explanations for Spinoza's ban. It then turns to the variety of traditions in Jewish religious and philosophical thought on the post‐mortem fate of the soul and the after life. This is followed by an examination of Spinoza's own views on the eternity of the mind in the Ethics and the role that the denial of personal immortality plays in his overall philosophical and political project. Part of the book's argument is that Spinoza's views were not only an outgrowth of his own metaphysical principles, but also a culmination of an intellectualist trend in medieval Jewish rationalism (especially Maimonides and Gersonides).Less
This is a study of the reasons behind Spinoza's excommunication from the Portuguese–Jewish community of Amsterdam in 1656. The central question in the book is how and why did the issue of the immortality of the soul play a role in the decision to excommunicate Spinoza. The work begins with a discussion of the nature of cherem or banning within Judaism, and in the Amsterdam community, in particular, as well as of a number of possible explanations for Spinoza's ban. It then turns to the variety of traditions in Jewish religious and philosophical thought on the post‐mortem fate of the soul and the after life. This is followed by an examination of Spinoza's own views on the eternity of the mind in the Ethics and the role that the denial of personal immortality plays in his overall philosophical and political project. Part of the book's argument is that Spinoza's views were not only an outgrowth of his own metaphysical principles, but also a culmination of an intellectualist trend in medieval Jewish rationalism (especially Maimonides and Gersonides).
Jonathan Bennett
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780198250920
- eISBN:
- 9780191597060
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0198250924.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
This book presents and analyses the most important parts of the philosophical works of Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. Volume 1: the shift from Aristotelian to Cartesian ...
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This book presents and analyses the most important parts of the philosophical works of Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. Volume 1: the shift from Aristotelian to Cartesian physics; Descartes on matter and space, on causation, and on certainty; Descartes and Spinoza on matter and mind, and on desire; Leibniz's metaphysics (monads) and physics, his theory of animals. Volume 2: Locke on ideas, on necessity, on essences, on substance, on secondary qualities, on personal identity; Descartes on modality; Berkeley's epistemology and metaphysics; Hume on ideas, on belief, on causation, on bodies, on reason; Hume and Leibniz on personal identity.Less
This book presents and analyses the most important parts of the philosophical works of Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. Volume 1: the shift from Aristotelian to Cartesian physics; Descartes on matter and space, on causation, and on certainty; Descartes and Spinoza on matter and mind, and on desire; Leibniz's metaphysics (monads) and physics, his theory of animals. Volume 2: Locke on ideas, on necessity, on essences, on substance, on secondary qualities, on personal identity; Descartes on modality; Berkeley's epistemology and metaphysics; Hume on ideas, on belief, on causation, on bodies, on reason; Hume and Leibniz on personal identity.
Rocco J. Gennaro and Charles Huenemann (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780195165418
- eISBN:
- 9780199868285
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195165411.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
This anthology presents recent writings on Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz. All of the essays were written especially for this volume, and many of them grew out of a 1995 NEH summer seminar on the ...
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This anthology presents recent writings on Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz. All of the essays were written especially for this volume, and many of them grew out of a 1995 NEH summer seminar on the Rationalists hosted by Jonathan Bennett at Syracuse University. The collection is divided into three parts: “Matter and Substance,” “Freedom and Necessity,” and “Mind and Consciousness.” Essays include those written by Jonathan Bennett, J. A. Cover, Edwin Curley, Michael Della Rocca, Don Garrett, Stephen Voss, Catherine Wilson, and Margaret D. Wilson. Some specific topics include Descartes's conception of empty space (i.e., vacuum), Leibniz on the infinite divisibility of matter, Spinoza's “necessitarianism,” and Spinoza and Leibniz on animal mentality and consciousness.Less
This anthology presents recent writings on Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz. All of the essays were written especially for this volume, and many of them grew out of a 1995 NEH summer seminar on the Rationalists hosted by Jonathan Bennett at Syracuse University. The collection is divided into three parts: “Matter and Substance,” “Freedom and Necessity,” and “Mind and Consciousness.” Essays include those written by Jonathan Bennett, J. A. Cover, Edwin Curley, Michael Della Rocca, Don Garrett, Stephen Voss, Catherine Wilson, and Margaret D. Wilson. Some specific topics include Descartes's conception of empty space (i.e., vacuum), Leibniz on the infinite divisibility of matter, Spinoza's “necessitarianism,” and Spinoza and Leibniz on animal mentality and consciousness.
Jonathan Bennett
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780198250913
- eISBN:
- 9780191597053
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0198250916.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
This book presents and analyses the most important parts of the philosophical works of Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. Volume 1: the shift from Aristotelian to Cartesian ...
More
This book presents and analyses the most important parts of the philosophical works of Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. Volume 1: the shift from Aristotelian to Cartesian physics; Descartes on matter and space, on causation, and on certainty; Descartes and Spinoza on matter and mind, and on desire; Leibniz's metaphysics (monads) and physics, his theory of animals. Volume 2: Locke on ideas, on necessity, on essences, on substance, on secondary qualities, on personal identity; Descartes on modality; Berkeley's epistemology and metaphysics; Hume on ideas, on belief, on causation, on bodies, on reason; Hume and Leibniz on personal identity.Less
This book presents and analyses the most important parts of the philosophical works of Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. Volume 1: the shift from Aristotelian to Cartesian physics; Descartes on matter and space, on causation, and on certainty; Descartes and Spinoza on matter and mind, and on desire; Leibniz's metaphysics (monads) and physics, his theory of animals. Volume 2: Locke on ideas, on necessity, on essences, on substance, on secondary qualities, on personal identity; Descartes on modality; Berkeley's epistemology and metaphysics; Hume on ideas, on belief, on causation, on bodies, on reason; Hume and Leibniz on personal identity.
Stephen Gaukroger
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- January 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199296446
- eISBN:
- 9780191711985
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199296446.003.0013
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
One of the driving ideas behind many of the various movements in 17th-century natural philosophy was that of the unity of knowledge. There were two principal ways of establishing this in its most ...
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One of the driving ideas behind many of the various movements in 17th-century natural philosophy was that of the unity of knowledge. There were two principal ways of establishing this in its most general form. The first was politico-theology: Spinoza undermined the claims of Christianity to supply satisfactory notions of wisdom and happiness, and to set out to develop a novel account of how a mechanised natural philosophy can lead to wisdom and happiness. The general unqualified rejection of the Spinozean model does not mean that in a struggle between legitimacy, which the Spinozean conception effectively abandoned, and autonomy, which it established beyond doubt, natural philosophers favoured legitimacy over autonomy. They wanted both, and the answer was deemed to lie in physico-theology: revelation and natural philosophy were treated as being mutually reinforcing, there being a process of triangulation towards the shared truth of revelation and natural philosophy.Less
One of the driving ideas behind many of the various movements in 17th-century natural philosophy was that of the unity of knowledge. There were two principal ways of establishing this in its most general form. The first was politico-theology: Spinoza undermined the claims of Christianity to supply satisfactory notions of wisdom and happiness, and to set out to develop a novel account of how a mechanised natural philosophy can lead to wisdom and happiness. The general unqualified rejection of the Spinozean model does not mean that in a struggle between legitimacy, which the Spinozean conception effectively abandoned, and autonomy, which it established beyond doubt, natural philosophers favoured legitimacy over autonomy. They wanted both, and the answer was deemed to lie in physico-theology: revelation and natural philosophy were treated as being mutually reinforcing, there being a process of triangulation towards the shared truth of revelation and natural philosophy.
Olli I. Koistinen and John I. Biro (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- February 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780195128154
- eISBN:
- 9780199786008
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/019512815X.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Metaphysics/Epistemology
This book features 11 essays on the philosophy of Spinoza. These essays support the contention that Spinoza was not only a visionary, but also an acute philosopher who anticipated philosophical ...
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This book features 11 essays on the philosophy of Spinoza. These essays support the contention that Spinoza was not only a visionary, but also an acute philosopher who anticipated philosophical problems that continue to be the focus of attention. Spinoza’s main goal was to gain knowledge not just for its own sake, but for the sake of his own well-being. His philosophy was directed not only towards finding the truth, but also towards finding happiness. The essays cover three aspects of Spinoza’s philosophy: monism, mind, and the conatus doctrine.Less
This book features 11 essays on the philosophy of Spinoza. These essays support the contention that Spinoza was not only a visionary, but also an acute philosopher who anticipated philosophical problems that continue to be the focus of attention. Spinoza’s main goal was to gain knowledge not just for its own sake, but for the sake of his own well-being. His philosophy was directed not only towards finding the truth, but also towards finding happiness. The essays cover three aspects of Spinoza’s philosophy: monism, mind, and the conatus doctrine.
Daniel Garber and Donald Rutherford (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199659593
- eISBN:
- 9780191745218
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199659593.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
Oxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy is an annual series, presenting a selection of the best current work in the history of early modern philosophy. It focuses on the seventeenth and eighteenth ...
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Oxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy is an annual series, presenting a selection of the best current work in the history of early modern philosophy. It focuses on the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries — the extraordinary period of intellectual flourishing that begins, very roughly, with Descartes and his contemporaries and ends with Kant. It also publishes papers on thinkers or movements outside of that framework, provided they are important in illuminating early modern thought. Topics covered include Spinoza's political philosophy, Leibniz, monadic domination, Newton's ontology of omnipresence and infinate space, Hume, and Descarte.Less
Oxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy is an annual series, presenting a selection of the best current work in the history of early modern philosophy. It focuses on the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries — the extraordinary period of intellectual flourishing that begins, very roughly, with Descartes and his contemporaries and ends with Kant. It also publishes papers on thinkers or movements outside of that framework, provided they are important in illuminating early modern thought. Topics covered include Spinoza's political philosophy, Leibniz, monadic domination, Newton's ontology of omnipresence and infinate space, Hume, and Descarte.
T.L.S. Sprigge
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- May 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780199283040
- eISBN:
- 9780191603662
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199283044.003.0002
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion
This chapter begins with an account of the life of Spinoza. It then discusses his great work, the Ethics, and the proof of its fundamental claim that there is just one substance, and that everything ...
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This chapter begins with an account of the life of Spinoza. It then discusses his great work, the Ethics, and the proof of its fundamental claim that there is just one substance, and that everything else which in any manner exists is a mode of it. There follows an account of Spinoza’s form of determinism and its ethical and religious significance and of his distinction between rational and irrational action. Finally there is a discussion of Spinoza’s views on institutionalized religion, and on Jesus. The chapter ends by asking whether Spinozism offers a ‘personal religion’.Less
This chapter begins with an account of the life of Spinoza. It then discusses his great work, the Ethics, and the proof of its fundamental claim that there is just one substance, and that everything else which in any manner exists is a mode of it. There follows an account of Spinoza’s form of determinism and its ethical and religious significance and of his distinction between rational and irrational action. Finally there is a discussion of Spinoza’s views on institutionalized religion, and on Jesus. The chapter ends by asking whether Spinozism offers a ‘personal religion’.
Jacqueline Mariña
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199206377
- eISBN:
- 9780191709753
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199206377.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, Philosophy of Religion
This chapter examines the grounds for the younger Schleiermacher's claim in Spinozism that there are no genuine individuals. Making extensive use of Kant's philosophy, Schleiermacher defends ...
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This chapter examines the grounds for the younger Schleiermacher's claim in Spinozism that there are no genuine individuals. Making extensive use of Kant's philosophy, Schleiermacher defends Spinoza's claim that there can be only one genuine substance. His argument is conducted in light of Jacobi's presentation of Leibniz' system. The first part of the chapter discusses Schleiermacher's epistemological arguments against the knowability of Leibniz' principle of individuation. The second part of the chapter provides an analysis of Schleiermacher's metaphysical arguments against the existence of a genuine plurality of individuals.Less
This chapter examines the grounds for the younger Schleiermacher's claim in Spinozism that there are no genuine individuals. Making extensive use of Kant's philosophy, Schleiermacher defends Spinoza's claim that there can be only one genuine substance. His argument is conducted in light of Jacobi's presentation of Leibniz' system. The first part of the chapter discusses Schleiermacher's epistemological arguments against the knowability of Leibniz' principle of individuation. The second part of the chapter provides an analysis of Schleiermacher's metaphysical arguments against the existence of a genuine plurality of individuals.
C. B. Martin
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199234103
- eISBN:
- 9780191715570
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199234103.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind
What are the most fundamental features of the world? Do minds stand outside the natural order? Is a unified picture of mental and physical reality possible? This book provides an account of the world ...
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What are the most fundamental features of the world? Do minds stand outside the natural order? Is a unified picture of mental and physical reality possible? This book provides an account of the world as a unified system incorporating both the mental and the physical. The book echoes Locke's dictum that ‘all things that exist are only particulars’, and argues that properties are powerful qualities. It also spells out the implications of this view for philosophical conceptions of causation, intentionality, consciousness, and the mind–body problem. The book emphasizes the importance of non-conscious ‘vegetative’ systems, which provide clear examples of intentionality in the form of representational use. The slide from representational use to consciousness involves a change in the material of use, but not the form of representation. The concluding chapter provides an argument for the view that an ontology of particular substances and properties leads ineluctably to monism: the bus we board with Locke takes us directly to the world of Spinoza and Einstein. Along the way, we are led to understand the nature of minds and conscious states of mind in a way that avoids both reductionism (the idea that mental is reducible to the non-mental) and dualism (the idea that mental substances or properties differ dramatically from physical substances and properties).Less
What are the most fundamental features of the world? Do minds stand outside the natural order? Is a unified picture of mental and physical reality possible? This book provides an account of the world as a unified system incorporating both the mental and the physical. The book echoes Locke's dictum that ‘all things that exist are only particulars’, and argues that properties are powerful qualities. It also spells out the implications of this view for philosophical conceptions of causation, intentionality, consciousness, and the mind–body problem. The book emphasizes the importance of non-conscious ‘vegetative’ systems, which provide clear examples of intentionality in the form of representational use. The slide from representational use to consciousness involves a change in the material of use, but not the form of representation. The concluding chapter provides an argument for the view that an ontology of particular substances and properties leads ineluctably to monism: the bus we board with Locke takes us directly to the world of Spinoza and Einstein. Along the way, we are led to understand the nature of minds and conscious states of mind in a way that avoids both reductionism (the idea that mental is reducible to the non-mental) and dualism (the idea that mental substances or properties differ dramatically from physical substances and properties).
Byron L. Sherwin
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195336238
- eISBN:
- 9780199868520
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195336238.003.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
In the seventeenth-century, Baruch Spinoza began a campaign to discredit theology in general and Jewish theology in particular. By the dawn of the twenty-first century sociological data confirmed the ...
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In the seventeenth-century, Baruch Spinoza began a campaign to discredit theology in general and Jewish theology in particular. By the dawn of the twenty-first century sociological data confirmed the success of his efforts. This chapter traces the origins of many of Spinoza's views to the converso community out of which he came, and follows the development of features of his “secular faith” through the Enlightenment to our own times. Such features include: the replacement of divine revelation with human rationality, religious obligations with individual moral autonomy, peoplehood with universalism, rabbinic Judaism with the ethics of “prophetic Judaism.” These features are further traced in Sabbateanism, Kantian philosophy, the Jewish Enlightenment, early Reform Judaism, and the biblical scholarship of Julius Wellhausen, to contemporary Jewry's advocacy of new forms of “prophetic Judaism,” and the emergence of the “sovereign self.” A conclusion of this chapter is that contemporary American Jewry, which has disengaged itself from authentic Jewish theological discourse, has become a new form of “crypto-Judaism.”Less
In the seventeenth-century, Baruch Spinoza began a campaign to discredit theology in general and Jewish theology in particular. By the dawn of the twenty-first century sociological data confirmed the success of his efforts. This chapter traces the origins of many of Spinoza's views to the converso community out of which he came, and follows the development of features of his “secular faith” through the Enlightenment to our own times. Such features include: the replacement of divine revelation with human rationality, religious obligations with individual moral autonomy, peoplehood with universalism, rabbinic Judaism with the ethics of “prophetic Judaism.” These features are further traced in Sabbateanism, Kantian philosophy, the Jewish Enlightenment, early Reform Judaism, and the biblical scholarship of Julius Wellhausen, to contemporary Jewry's advocacy of new forms of “prophetic Judaism,” and the emergence of the “sovereign self.” A conclusion of this chapter is that contemporary American Jewry, which has disengaged itself from authentic Jewish theological discourse, has become a new form of “crypto-Judaism.”
Catherine Wilson
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199238811
- eISBN:
- 9780191716492
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199238811.003.0005
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
Epicurean philosophers maintained that the human soul, composed of a particular kind of subtle atom, conferred sensibility and thought only so long as it permeated the organic body. Every atomic ...
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Epicurean philosophers maintained that the human soul, composed of a particular kind of subtle atom, conferred sensibility and thought only so long as it permeated the organic body. Every atomic composite was subject to dissolution, and complex living, thinking entities were necessarily short-lived. This Epicurean tenet was resisted by many early modern philosophers as offensive to Christianity and also as subjectively implausible. Descartes presented arguments in his Meditations to show that the human soul could not be an atomic composite, and could be inferred to be incorporeal and immortal. Spinoza however was scornful of Cartesian dualism, and his own theory of immortality does not imply survival of the person of the sort posited by Christian doctrine. Leibniz argued that organisms were soul-body composites that were naturally indissoluble and as a consequence immortal.Less
Epicurean philosophers maintained that the human soul, composed of a particular kind of subtle atom, conferred sensibility and thought only so long as it permeated the organic body. Every atomic composite was subject to dissolution, and complex living, thinking entities were necessarily short-lived. This Epicurean tenet was resisted by many early modern philosophers as offensive to Christianity and also as subjectively implausible. Descartes presented arguments in his Meditations to show that the human soul could not be an atomic composite, and could be inferred to be incorporeal and immortal. Spinoza however was scornful of Cartesian dualism, and his own theory of immortality does not imply survival of the person of the sort posited by Christian doctrine. Leibniz argued that organisms were soul-body composites that were naturally indissoluble and as a consequence immortal.
Hermann Levin Goldschmidt
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- March 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823228263
- eISBN:
- 9780823237142
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fso/9780823228263.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
First published in 1957, this book is a rethinking of the German–Jewish experience. The book challenges the elegiac view of Gershom Scholem, showing us the German–Jewish legacy in literature, ...
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First published in 1957, this book is a rethinking of the German–Jewish experience. The book challenges the elegiac view of Gershom Scholem, showing us the German–Jewish legacy in literature, philosophy, and critical thought in a new light. Part One re-examines the breakthrough to modernity, tracing the moves of thinkers like Moses Mendelssohn, building on the legacies of religious figures like the Baal Shem Tov and radical philosophers such as Spinoza. This vision of modernity, the book shows, rested upon a belief that “remnants” of the radical past could provide ideas and energy for reconceiving the modern world. The book's philosophy of the remnant animates Part Two as well, where his account of the political history of the Jews in modernity and the riches of Jewish culture as recast in German–Jewish thought provide insights into Leo Baeck, Hermann Cohen, and Franz Rosenzweig, among others. Part Three analyzes the post-Auschwitz complex, and uses the Book of Job to break through that trauma. Biblical in its perspective, the book describes the innovative ways that German–Jewish writers and thinkers anticipated what we now call multiculturalism and its concern with the Other. Rather than destined to destruction, the German–Jewish experience is reconceived here as a past whose unfulfilled project remains urgent and contemporary—a dream yet to be realized in practice, and hence a task that still awaits its completion.Less
First published in 1957, this book is a rethinking of the German–Jewish experience. The book challenges the elegiac view of Gershom Scholem, showing us the German–Jewish legacy in literature, philosophy, and critical thought in a new light. Part One re-examines the breakthrough to modernity, tracing the moves of thinkers like Moses Mendelssohn, building on the legacies of religious figures like the Baal Shem Tov and radical philosophers such as Spinoza. This vision of modernity, the book shows, rested upon a belief that “remnants” of the radical past could provide ideas and energy for reconceiving the modern world. The book's philosophy of the remnant animates Part Two as well, where his account of the political history of the Jews in modernity and the riches of Jewish culture as recast in German–Jewish thought provide insights into Leo Baeck, Hermann Cohen, and Franz Rosenzweig, among others. Part Three analyzes the post-Auschwitz complex, and uses the Book of Job to break through that trauma. Biblical in its perspective, the book describes the innovative ways that German–Jewish writers and thinkers anticipated what we now call multiculturalism and its concern with the Other. Rather than destined to destruction, the German–Jewish experience is reconceived here as a past whose unfulfilled project remains urgent and contemporary—a dream yet to be realized in practice, and hence a task that still awaits its completion.
Leonard B. Glick
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- July 2005
- ISBN:
- 9780195176742
- eISBN:
- 9780199835621
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/019517674X.003.0004
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
The traditional Jewish circumcision rite, created during the medieval period but preserved today by many Orthodox Jews, emphasizes bloodshed, sacrifice, and sexual purity. Medieval Jewish ...
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The traditional Jewish circumcision rite, created during the medieval period but preserved today by many Orthodox Jews, emphasizes bloodshed, sacrifice, and sexual purity. Medieval Jewish commentators on circumcision, as exemplified here by Maimonides and Isaac ben Yedaiah, recognized (and approved) of the damage to male sexuality caused by circumcision. Circumcision features prominently in Jewish mystical writings (kabbalah), which portray foreskin removal as an essential precondition for apprehension of ultimate spiritual mysteries. Spinoza commented on ritual circumcision in a statement that is often misinterpreted as support for the practice, when in fact it was precisely the opposite. Spanish and Portuguese conversos were obliged to undergo circumcision for admission into other Jewish communities; those who fled to the New World sometimes secretly circumcised themselves or their sons.Less
The traditional Jewish circumcision rite, created during the medieval period but preserved today by many Orthodox Jews, emphasizes bloodshed, sacrifice, and sexual purity. Medieval Jewish commentators on circumcision, as exemplified here by Maimonides and Isaac ben Yedaiah, recognized (and approved) of the damage to male sexuality caused by circumcision. Circumcision features prominently in Jewish mystical writings (kabbalah), which portray foreskin removal as an essential precondition for apprehension of ultimate spiritual mysteries. Spinoza commented on ritual circumcision in a statement that is often misinterpreted as support for the practice, when in fact it was precisely the opposite. Spanish and Portuguese conversos were obliged to undergo circumcision for admission into other Jewish communities; those who fled to the New World sometimes secretly circumcised themselves or their sons.
Daniel B. Schwartz
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691142913
- eISBN:
- 9781400842261
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691142913.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
Pioneering biblical critic, theorist of democracy, and legendary conflater of God and nature, Jewish philosopher Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) was excommunicated by the Sephardic Jews of Amsterdam in ...
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Pioneering biblical critic, theorist of democracy, and legendary conflater of God and nature, Jewish philosopher Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) was excommunicated by the Sephardic Jews of Amsterdam in 1656 for his “horrible heresies” and “monstrous deeds.” Yet, over the past three centuries, Spinoza's rupture with traditional Jewish beliefs and practices has elevated him to a prominent place in genealogies of Jewish modernity. This book provides a riveting look at how Spinoza went from being one of Judaism's most notorious outcasts to one of its most celebrated, if still highly controversial, cultural icons, and a powerful and protean symbol of the first modern secular Jew. Ranging from Amsterdam to Palestine and back again to Europe, the book chronicles Spinoza's posthumous odyssey from marginalized heretic to hero, the exemplar of a whole host of Jewish identities, including cosmopolitan, nationalist, reformist, and rejectionist. The book shows that in fashioning Spinoza into “the first modern Jew,” generations of Jewish intellectuals—German liberals, East European maskilim, secular Zionists, and Yiddishists—have projected their own dilemmas of identity onto him, reshaping the Amsterdam thinker in their own image. The many afterlives of Spinoza are a kind of looking glass into the struggles of Jewish writers over where to draw the boundaries of Jewishness and whether a secular Jewish identity is indeed possible. Cumulatively, these afterlives offer a kaleidoscopic view of modern Jewish culture and a vivid history of an obsession with Spinoza that continues to this day.Less
Pioneering biblical critic, theorist of democracy, and legendary conflater of God and nature, Jewish philosopher Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) was excommunicated by the Sephardic Jews of Amsterdam in 1656 for his “horrible heresies” and “monstrous deeds.” Yet, over the past three centuries, Spinoza's rupture with traditional Jewish beliefs and practices has elevated him to a prominent place in genealogies of Jewish modernity. This book provides a riveting look at how Spinoza went from being one of Judaism's most notorious outcasts to one of its most celebrated, if still highly controversial, cultural icons, and a powerful and protean symbol of the first modern secular Jew. Ranging from Amsterdam to Palestine and back again to Europe, the book chronicles Spinoza's posthumous odyssey from marginalized heretic to hero, the exemplar of a whole host of Jewish identities, including cosmopolitan, nationalist, reformist, and rejectionist. The book shows that in fashioning Spinoza into “the first modern Jew,” generations of Jewish intellectuals—German liberals, East European maskilim, secular Zionists, and Yiddishists—have projected their own dilemmas of identity onto him, reshaping the Amsterdam thinker in their own image. The many afterlives of Spinoza are a kind of looking glass into the struggles of Jewish writers over where to draw the boundaries of Jewishness and whether a secular Jewish identity is indeed possible. Cumulatively, these afterlives offer a kaleidoscopic view of modern Jewish culture and a vivid history of an obsession with Spinoza that continues to this day.
Peter C. Hodgson
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- April 2005
- ISBN:
- 9780199273614
- eISBN:
- 9780191602443
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199273618.003.0005
- Subject:
- Religion, Philosophy of Religion
God is the absolute truth and substance of all things, the universal in which everything subsists. As such God is also absolute subjectivity, or spirit. The concrete development of this idea of God ...
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God is the absolute truth and substance of all things, the universal in which everything subsists. As such God is also absolute subjectivity, or spirit. The concrete development of this idea of God yields the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. But Hegel first reflects on the concept of God in a more abstract philosophical sense, where he is at pains to distinguish an authentic panentheism (all things have their being in God) from a spurious pantheism (everything is God). The analysis then shifts from the being to the knowledge of God, of which, according to Hegel, there are four basic forms: immediate knowledge (faith), feeling, representation (Vorstellung), and thought. Each is valid, but each is also superseded by the next form. Thinking about God appears in the various religions as proofs of the existence of God (cosmological, teleological, ontological). If knowledge of God is the theoretical form of the religious relationship, the worship of God is the practical form—indeed the form in which the relationship is consummated by the participation of the believer in God through cultic acts such as devotion, sacrifice, and sacraments.Less
God is the absolute truth and substance of all things, the universal in which everything subsists. As such God is also absolute subjectivity, or spirit. The concrete development of this idea of God yields the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. But Hegel first reflects on the concept of God in a more abstract philosophical sense, where he is at pains to distinguish an authentic panentheism (all things have their being in God) from a spurious pantheism (everything is God). The analysis then shifts from the being to the knowledge of God, of which, according to Hegel, there are four basic forms: immediate knowledge (faith), feeling, representation (Vorstellung), and thought. Each is valid, but each is also superseded by the next form. Thinking about God appears in the various religions as proofs of the existence of God (cosmological, teleological, ontological). If knowledge of God is the theoretical form of the religious relationship, the worship of God is the practical form—indeed the form in which the relationship is consummated by the participation of the believer in God through cultic acts such as devotion, sacrifice, and sacraments.
Nicholas Halmi
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199212415
- eISBN:
- 9780191707223
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199212415.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism
This chapter argues that the Enlightenment in its multiplicity made the Romantic concept of a universal and inherently meaningful symbolism not only intellectually desirable, but philosophically ...
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This chapter argues that the Enlightenment in its multiplicity made the Romantic concept of a universal and inherently meaningful symbolism not only intellectually desirable, but philosophically possible. Four developments, each entailing in its way a rejection of dualism, were crucial: (1) the non-subjectivist recuperation of sensible intuition in the disciplines comprising ‘ natural history’; (2) the interpretation of humanity's cognitive relation to nature in terms of a microcosm-macrocosm analogy; (3) the increased acceptance of metaphysical monism after the reported affirmation of Spinoza's philosophy by the much-admired Lessing; and (4) the replacement of mechanistic with vitalist theories of matter in the later 18th century. These developments were not necessarily compatible with each other: vitalism, for example, rejected the mechanistic concepts that Spinoza applied more rigorously and comprehensively than anyone else. But by a process of syncretic assimilation the Romantics, especially Schelling (with active encouragement from Goethe), undertook to develop out of the various anti-dualist tendencies in Enlightenment thought ‘a markedly unified interpretation of matter and spirit, of nature and history, as elements of a single ascending process’ — in short, the Naturphilosophie on which the claims for the symbol would be based.Less
This chapter argues that the Enlightenment in its multiplicity made the Romantic concept of a universal and inherently meaningful symbolism not only intellectually desirable, but philosophically possible. Four developments, each entailing in its way a rejection of dualism, were crucial: (1) the non-subjectivist recuperation of sensible intuition in the disciplines comprising ‘ natural history’; (2) the interpretation of humanity's cognitive relation to nature in terms of a microcosm-macrocosm analogy; (3) the increased acceptance of metaphysical monism after the reported affirmation of Spinoza's philosophy by the much-admired Lessing; and (4) the replacement of mechanistic with vitalist theories of matter in the later 18th century. These developments were not necessarily compatible with each other: vitalism, for example, rejected the mechanistic concepts that Spinoza applied more rigorously and comprehensively than anyone else. But by a process of syncretic assimilation the Romantics, especially Schelling (with active encouragement from Goethe), undertook to develop out of the various anti-dualist tendencies in Enlightenment thought ‘a markedly unified interpretation of matter and spirit, of nature and history, as elements of a single ascending process’ — in short, the Naturphilosophie on which the claims for the symbol would be based.
Paul Russell
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195110333
- eISBN:
- 9780199872084
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195110333.003.0005
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
The early responses to the Treatise show that the issue of “atheism” was neither peripheral nor irrelevant to the way that Hume's own contemporaries understood his aims and objectives. Most ...
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The early responses to the Treatise show that the issue of “atheism” was neither peripheral nor irrelevant to the way that Hume's own contemporaries understood his aims and objectives. Most contemporary Hume scholars maintain, however, that this label, not only misrepresents Hume's intentions in the Treatise but that it also misrepresents his position on the subject of religion as presented in his later writings (which are understood to be more “directly” or “explicitly” concerned with religion). The immediate aim of this chapter is to develop a clearer understanding of the way that Hume and his contemporaries interpreted “atheism” and the specific doctrines that were associated with it. Once this standard is (back) in place, we will be in a position to determine the extent to which the charge of “atheism” fits the actual content of the Treatise.Less
The early responses to the Treatise show that the issue of “atheism” was neither peripheral nor irrelevant to the way that Hume's own contemporaries understood his aims and objectives. Most contemporary Hume scholars maintain, however, that this label, not only misrepresents Hume's intentions in the Treatise but that it also misrepresents his position on the subject of religion as presented in his later writings (which are understood to be more “directly” or “explicitly” concerned with religion). The immediate aim of this chapter is to develop a clearer understanding of the way that Hume and his contemporaries interpreted “atheism” and the specific doctrines that were associated with it. Once this standard is (back) in place, we will be in a position to determine the extent to which the charge of “atheism” fits the actual content of the Treatise.
