Spinoza. Summary of The Ethics: Of God/Nature & Man

Read the text and Support the Philosophical Bachelor at / philosophicalbachelor
To make a one-off contribution: gogetfunding.com/philosophica...
Thank you, it is much appreciated.
If Spinoza’s treatise, The Ethics, had predated the scriptures of the major world religions, I wonder how we would view God and religious life today. Would deism rank alongside the major faiths in its number of adherents? I think that readers of The Ethics, if they paid it serious attention and took the time to study it, may be surprised by how radical and yet how reasonable Spinoza’s ideas and conclusions are. Yet he was expelled from his community for his views, even though where he lived, the Netherlands in the 17th century, was considered among the most liberal countries in the world. Hence, it is worth examining his life briefly before plunging into his canonical work since understanding who Spinoza is and the context of his times can help us understand why his ideas were controversial then and even today.
While Spinoza may be best known for his metaphysics today, we have to remember that his aim in The Ethics is to lay out an ethical system on how we should live, as individuals and as a society. But before he can talk about ethics, he needs to address the nature of the beings that ethics apply to, that is, human beings. Before he can talk about human beings, he needs to talk about the nature of all of reality, which is why he begins with God. The idea is to understand the nature of reality and from that understanding figure out the nature of human beings. From understanding both these foregoing concepts, he can then talk about how we should live.
Video on free will: • Introduction to Free W...
Bibliography
‘Benedict de Spinoza | Biography, Ethics, & Facts | Britannica’. Accessed 17 January 2023. www.britannica.com/biography/....
Kluz, Christopher. ‘Moral Responsibility without Free Will: Spinoza’s Social Approach’. In Doing without Free Will: Spinoza and Contemporary Moral Problems, edited by Ursula Goldenbaum. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2015.
Lord, Beth. Spinoza’s Ethics: An Edinburgh Philosophical Guide. Edinburgh Philosophical Guides Series. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2010.
Nadler, Steven. ‘Baruch Spinoza’. In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward N. Zalta, Summer 2022. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, 2022. plato.stanford.edu/archives/s....
Pink, Thomas. Free Will: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.
Rosenthal, Michael A. ‘Why Spinoza Is Intolerant of Atheists: God and the Limits of Early Modern Liberalism’. The Review of Metaphysics 65, no. 4 (June 2012): 813-39.
Spinoza, Benedictus de. A Spinoza Reader: The Ethics and Other Works. Translated by E. M. Curley. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1994.
---. The Ethics. Translated by R. H. M. (Robert Harvey Monro) Elwes, 1997. www.faculty.umb.edu/gary_zabe....
Graphics: Dimitar Tzankov, Muhammad Faiz Rasid, Rc-Aero-Tech, Federico Maderno, Ronin Studio, Javier Lemus, Bellergy RC, invisiblepower, Joe Hackney, Asim Bashir, Christian Bodhi, Luc GREINER, Matthias Groeneveld, wolfyy01, Muhammad Saqib, Alexa, Thomas, Engin Akyurt, Jonathan Fahrny, Vimeo-Free-Videos, Welcome to All ! ツ, Marian Croitoru, Tomislav Jakupec, motionstock, PIRO, Johnson Cherian, Zaid Pro, & Co. from Pixabay
Sound: Almost in F - Tranquillity by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. creativecommons.org/licenses/...
Source: incompetech.com/music/royalty-...
Fluidscape by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. creativecommons.org/licenses/...
Source: incompetech.com/music/royalty-...
Ambiment - The Ambient by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. creativecommons.org/licenses/...
Source: incompetech.com/music/royalty-...
Drone in D by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. creativecommons.org/licenses/...
Source: incompetech.com/music/royalty-...
Artist: incompetech.com/

[@Smallchange2222]

Thank you for your hard work making these videos....its greatly appreciated to the layperson trying to understand.

[@PhilosophicalBachelor]

:-)

[@zeroonetime]

All actions/movements/moments are the Life Force of Creation

[@brianhoran6858]

I agree with @TyeTass33. 99% of what I know about Spinoza comes from commentary and critique. Kind of weird, but despite how hard it is to read ETHICS; Spinoza presents some of my favorite thought. Deep down, I must be a monist. I'll check out more of your videos. I like Plato too. His translated writing is much easier to approach.

[@PhilosophicalBachelor]

Actually I think what's hard to read in the Ethics are the proofs. They are sometimes not quite related to the content of the propositions and also hard to follow. I did read them but on my attempt to understand the book, I just skipped them and focused on the propositions themselves. As for Plato, agreed, it is a pleasure to read, it is creative and even humorous at times.

[@brianhoran6858]

@@PhilosophicalBachelor Maybe I'll try and read Ethics the same way.

[@brianhoran6858]

@@PhilosophicalBachelor Got some time. Gonna try and read Ethics your way.

[@lewisalmeida3495]

Spinoza’s philosophy is more than having an intellectual conversation, but to understand and live his ideas. Spinoza’s Ethics communicates a method of increasing the powers of one’s mind by improving its understanding. It’s possible to free oneself from emotional confusions by understanding that free will is an illusion and that we follow the laws of nature. I have dedicated my life to Spinoza’s philosophy and now I teach it. You can find my work on my website or on KZbin.

[@PhilosophicalBachelor]

Hey Lewis, thanks for swinging by. Actually, one thing I wondered about is how Spinoza reconciles the question of free will since things will just happen as it is going to anyway. So to improve one's understanding, how can we choose to do so since there is really no choice in the matter anyway. Same thing with Schopenhauer, he talks about renunciation but since everything is determined, then it will just happen or not anyway.

[@lewisalmeida3495]

@@PhilosophicalBachelor your understanding of free will and determinism needs more clarity. Spinoza understood that the mind is comprised of clear ideas and confused ideas. When your mind is clear it's expressing the mind of God. Being aware of that reality brings happiness and fulfillment. You are responding to the words passively without understanding.

[@travisporco]

It isn't the geometric method that is the barrier. It is the language itself. You can't get through the very first batch of definitions without being steeped in medieval metaphysics, or so it seems to me. What is he talking about on page 1?

[@PhilosophicalBachelor]

I think in general, having some knowledge of what went before and even what went after is helpful to understand any thinker. In the case of Spinoza's Ethics, I do think he has been careful to define his terms. In fact, what I think is needed is to put aside what we think things mean, and try to understand what Spinoza means, because his definitions are not quite the same as how the term is commonly understood. He is doing something rather different from those before him, so it is important to understand him on his own terms. Anyway, it is precisely the point of the video to try to explain what is going on. So I do hope it is helpful.

[@travisporco]

@@PhilosophicalBachelor That very first sentence could be interpreted as discussing the totality of existence, or the experience of awareness; you literally cannot comprehend the experience of unconsciousness. Then he gets into attributes, modes, and the idea of "conceived through".