The Young Spinoza: A Metaphysician in the MakingYitzhak Y. Melamed Oxford University Press, 13 mrt 2015 - 320 pagina's Ex nihilo nihil fit. Philosophy, especially great philosophy, does not appear out of the blue. In the current volume, a team of top scholars-both up-and-coming and established-attempts to trace the philosophical development of one of the greatest philosophers of all time. Featuring twenty new essays and an introduction, it is the first attempt of its kind in English and its appearance coincides with the recent surge of interest in Spinoza in Anglo-American philosophy. Spinoza's fame-or notoriety-is due primarily to his posthumously published magnum opus, the Ethics, and, to a lesser extent, to the 1670 Theological-Political Treatise. Few readers take the time to study his early works carefully. If they do, they are likely to encounter some surprising claims, which often diverge from, or even utterly contradict, the doctrines of the Ethics. Consider just a few of these assertions: that God acts from absolute freedom of will, that God is a whole, that there are no modes in God, that extension is divisible and hence cannot be an attribute of God, and that the intellectual and corporeal substances are modes in relation to God. Yet, though these claims reveal some tension between the early works and the Ethics, there is also a clear continuity between them. Spinoza wrote the Ethics over a long period of time, which spanned most of his philosophical career. The dates of the early drafts of the Ethics seem to overlap with the assumed dates of the composition of the Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect and the Short Treatise on God, Man, and His Well Being and precede the publication of Spinoza's 1663 book on Descartes' Principles of Philosophy. For this reason, a study of Spinoza's early works (and correspondence) can illuminate the nature of the problems Spinoza addresses in the Ethics, insofar as the views expressed in the early works help us reconstruct the development and genealogy of the Ethics. Indeed, if we keep in mind the common dictum "nothing comes from nothing"-which Spinoza frequently cites and appeals to-it is clear that great works like the Ethics do not appear ex nihilo. In light of the preeminence and majesty of the Ethics, it is difficult to study the early works without having the Ethics in sight. Still, we would venture to say that the value of Spinoza's early works is not at all limited to their being stations on the road leading to the Ethics. A teleological attitude of such a sort would celebrate the works of the "mature Spinoza" at the expense of the early works. However, we have no reason to assume that on all issues the views of the Ethics are better argued, developed, and motivated than those of the early works. In other words, we should keep our minds open to the possibility that on some issues the early works might contain better analysis and argumentation than the Ethics. |
Inhoudsopgave
FictioVerziering e in Spinozas Early Writings | |
The Problem of True Ideas in Spinozas Treatise on | |
Truth in the Emendation | |
Spinozas Rules of Living | |
Leibniz on Spinozas Tractatus de Intellectus Emendatione | |
Spinozas Cartesian Dualism in the Korte Verhandeling | |
Spinozas Essentialism in the Short Treatise | |
When Was Spinoza Not Young Any More? | |
Spinoza on Negation MindDependence and Reality of | |
Temporalities and Kinds of Cognition in the Treatise on | |
Spinozas Early AntiAbstractionism | |
From the Passive to the Active Intellect | |
Degrees of Essence and Perfection in Spinoza | |
The Young Spinoza and the Vatican Manuscript of Spinozas | |
Overige edities - Alles bekijken
Veelvoorkomende woorden en zinsdelen
absolute absolutely infinite abstractions Acosmic affirmation antiabstractionism argues argument Aristotelian attributes body Calvin Cartesian causal cause chapter clear and distinct conceived Curley deduction definition Descartes discussion divine doctrine Dutch Edwin Curley Emendation emphasis added Ethics example existence explain extension fact feign fiction fingo finite things follows formal essences Hebrew Bible human mind imagination infinite modes insofar intellect intuition involves kinds of cognition knowledge KV II Leibniz Letter Maimonides Manasseh ben Israel manuscript mind’s motion and rest nature negation notion object ontological Opera posthuma particular passage passion perfection Peter philosophy of mind predestination proposition reading reality reason reference relation Rijnsburg scholium sense Short Treatise soul Spinoza claims Spinoza says Spinoza’s early Spinoza’s metaphysics Spinoza’s Theory Spinoza’s view Spinozistic Stensen substance suggests temporal thing’s essence thought true ideas truth Tschirnhaus understanding universals universe’s young Spinoza