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El propósito de este artículo es mostrar la ambigüedad que caracteriza a la definición de los afectos que Spinoza presenta al principio del libro III de su Ética en lo que respecta a la locución adverbial et simul que aparece en ella. El problema que aquí se plantea es aclarar hasta qué punto y en qué sentido Spinoza podría considerar que hay afectos del cuerpo o afectos del alma puramente. Este estudio pretende añadir argumentos, basados en las consideraciones que hace Spinoza sobre el placer y el dolor, que respalden la hipótesis de la existencia de afectos del cuerpo, pero haciendo compatible dicha tesis con el enfoque monista de Spinoza.

Before achieving success as a novelist, George Eliot spent several years translating Spinoza’s Ethics. Previous scholarship on Spinoza and Eliot has generally assumed that Eliot’s novels are wholly influenced by Spinoza, or that they can even be read as ‘translations’ of Spinoza. In this article, I instead argue that Eliot’s shift from Spinoza translation to novel-writing reflects an initial repudiation of, followed by a contention with, unresolved problems in Spinoza’s social philosophy as regards the role of sympathy, fellow-feeling, and the knowledge of others as distinct and different beings. I also explore how Eliot’s own views develop between the early novel Adam Bede and the later Middlemarch to argue against a reading of ‘sympathy’ in Eliot as something wholly consistent or uniform. Her efforts to fashion a post-Spinozan art of sympathy in Adam Bede, in which a morality of fellow-feeling is emphasised and explored in narratives of love and self-renunciation, resulted in internal problems concerning the reliability of the imagination and the power of societal relations to condition how this fellow-feeling is experienced. The later Eliot draws on a conceptual imagery of ‘threads’ of relationality and a ‘fabric’ of opinion in Middlemarch to emphasise the integration of thinking and feeling, and the role of beneficent action, in a manner consistent with aspects of Spinoza’s social philosophy. I show that Eliot here makes useful progress through and beyond lacunae in the Ethics, contributing to a wider set of debates about sympathy, difference, ethics, and epiphanies through the concept of sympathetic knowledge.

In this book, François Zourabichvili addresses three major themes of Spinoza’s philosophy, namely ethical emendation, childhood, and politics. Through the notion of transformation, the author argues that Spinozism is a “paradoxical conservatism” insofar as the Dutch philosopher develops a theory in which a transformation of the essence means death, and the main concern of this system is to create something that will be able to conserve itself. In this review, I argue that by linking together the problems of emendation, pedagogy, and political change, Zourabichvili grants a striking political relevance to both ethical emendation and pedagogy, introducing an alternative to revolutionary change without being less radical.

Following Santiago Slabodsky’s articulation of a tradition of decolonial Judaism and his suggestion that Spinoza might be considered a part of it, I argue that Spinoza may be considered a decolonial thinker. While outlining the historical context in which the Jewish Spinoza wrote, I present an interpretation of Spinoza’s philosophy—in particular, the political implications of his substance monism and naturalism—and demonstrate how it satisfies general standards for a decolonial theory. In addition to highlighting relevant topics in Spinoza’s corpus, including the notion of servitude and his passing comments on Islam, I rebut several potential objections to this reading. While accepting points of tension, I claim a generally consistent, decolonial character may define the overall system of Spinoza’s philosophy. I conclude the paper by considering the relationship between this interpretation and the only proper mention of colonialism in Spinoza’s corpus, i.e., his waking dream of a silent Afro-Brazilian man.

Does Hegel embrace pantheism? He faced accusations from his orthodox peers who adhered to Pantheism, a phrase that was commonly associated with atheism during his day. This study presents a counterargument to the assertion made by several contemporary orthodox contemporaries that Hegel is pantheistic. Hegel can be classified as a semi-pantheist. The manuscript is divided into three distinct sections. In the initial segment, I examine pantheism as posited by Spinoza, the pioneering contemporary pantheist whose contributions exerted a profound influence on other German thinkers, including Hegel. In the subsequent part, an examination of Hegel's pantheism will be conducted through an analysis of the concept of God or the Absolute. In the third section, an analysis is conducted on Hegel's notion of the features of the Absolute, and a comparison is made with Spinoza's God or Nature in order to ascertain if Hegel can be classified as a pantheist. It is believed that Hegel has a dissenting stance towards conventional pantheism, particularly that of Spinoza. Therefore, it can be inferred that Hegel's pantheism differs from Spinoza's. Hegel can be classified as a semi-pantheist.

En este artículo nos proponemos mostrar como el sistema político creado por el neoliberalismo es incapaz de procurar las condiciones adecuadas para que los seres humanos puedan alcanzar la felicidad. Para hacer esto, se realizará una interpretación de la filosofía de Baruch Spinoza que muestre que para que los seres humanos puedan alcanzar la felicidad, primero, deben de ser libres y esta libertad solo se puede conseguir mediante la unión social en comunidades políticas sanas donde prime la ayuda mutua. Al destruir la unión social, fruto de su propio planteamiento antropológico, el neoliberalismo priva a los individuos de la necesaria libertad que necesitan para poder ser felices y como consecuencia el neoliberalismo, nunca ha estado en condiciones de asegurar que las gentes puedan ser, efectivamente, felices.

Panentheism and pantheism represent one of the most profound, even startling parallels across the world’s great metaphysical traditions about which the present article seeks to explore and carry out a comparative study of certain Eastern and Western philosophers with special reference to the views of two chief exponents of Advaita Vedanta of Indian philosophy, Shankara and Ramanuja. Both these terms, touch on the relation of God and the universe with the difference that the former seems to be rigid, motionless, and abstract and lacks a kind of religious fervor in its approach, while the latter is presumed to be concrete and palpable and seeks to reconcile philosophical thinking with the demands of religious feelings as well. God in pantheism is compared to the God of Spinoza, the Neutrum of Schelling, and Shankara's concept of indeterminate Brahman. In contrast, in the West Hegelian Absolute, and Ramanuja's qualified Brahman in Indian tradition, both are accredited with panentheism in which a personal God, identity-in-and-through-difference, has all auspicious qualities. Though these philosophers are from totally different temperaments and cultures, their philosophical method has certain similarities that have been examined in this work.

This work aims to depart from conventional interpretations of Spinoza’s notions of essence and existence by offering an alternative perspective called the onto-gnoseological reading. Typically, these concepts of essence and existence are approached from an ontological standpoint or are simply disregarded. The objective of this paper is to demonstrate that Spinoza, within his corpus associates these notions with the activity of the genres of knowledge rather than with the ontological realm. This reinterpretation of the concepts from a gnoseological standpoint allows for a deeper comprehension of Spinoza’s philosophical undertaking. It becomes evident that this project involves the coexistence of gnoseological duality in perfect harmony with the univocity of reality, serving as a crucial instrument for recognizing the boundaries and possibilities of human knowledge and, subsequently, the potential for achieving human virtue.

En el presente trabajo, abordaremos ciertos lazos entre lo que, en términos de Émile Benveniste, podríamos denominar “categorías de pensamiento y categorías de la lengua”: relaciones entre el discurso filosófico maduro de Baruj Spinoza (aquel de Tractatus Theologico-Politicus o de Ethica) y la lengua hebrea. Y dentro de ese recorte, trabajaremos solo sobre los vínculos entre algunos aspectos de la metafísica espinosista y el estado constructo del sustantivo hebreo, tal como lo comprendió el filósofo. En Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (TTP), a través de un pormenorizado ejercicio analítico del sintagma bíblico “רוח אלהים” (rúaj elohim), Spinoza produce una exposición práctica del estado constructo hebreo; encontramos luego otra, pero teórica, en Compendium Grammatices Linguae Hebraeae (CGLH). Sobre la base de la conjunción de esas dos exposiciones, nos interesa trabajar algunos aspectos de la metafísica de Spinoza: aquellos implicados en expresiones oscuras (y por los especialistas ignoradas) del tipo “per vitam absolute” (en TTP) y “referri debent” (en Ethica). Creemos que los resultados de nuestro trabajo colaborarán no solo en una mejor comprensión de las obras del filósofo, sino también en la posibilidad de producir traducciones más precisas de ellas a lenguas modernas, como, por ejemplo, al español.

This article investigates the anthropology of Spinoza as a strategy for happiness, political, as well as individual. Inspired by the readings, comments, and perspectives of Matheron, Deleuze, and Balibar, I will analyze Spinoza’s theory of the affects as the basis for this strategic anthropology. These authors all share an ontological and political vision organized around the concepts of multitude and the transindividual which result directly from Spinoza’s analysis of the human affects in books III and IV of the Ethics, and his theory of political dynamics developed in the Political treatise. They consider Spinoza a contemporary and share with him the idea of a relational ontology and an inextricable and mutual interdependence of the individual and the community which is captured in the concept of the transindividual. With Matheron/Spinoza I will focus on the question of anthropology and the structure of thought, with Deleuze/Spinoza on the kinds of knowledge in relation to the human mind and body, and with Balibar/Spinoza on the transindividual, productive, active, and thus strategic nature of our thinking. These three analyses of human thought and affects all proceed from the hypothesis of conatus/desire as human essence and aim not just at theoretical knowledge but rather at the effective improvement of our well-being and lives, that is, at happiness.

Reseña de NEGRI, A. (2021). Spinoza ayer y hoy. Buenos Aires: Editorial Cactus.

Ao investigar filosoficamente a natureza humana, em sua Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata, Benedictus de Spinoza (1632-1677), pensador holandês seiscentista, infere que há um esforço (conatus) inerente ao indivíduo que o faz perseverar em sua existência. No entanto, na medida em que somos afetados por causas externas não compreendidas ocorrem em nosso modo de ser várias mudanças. E, isso influencia ou prejudica o desejo de viver e agir por virtude. Diante disso, o presente artigo traz uma abordagem filosófica sistemática para demonstrar que o desejo de viver e agir por virtude na obra supracitada advém de uma ética baseada em ideias e causas adequadas. Conclui-se que esse modo conduz a sociedade a uma liberdade por livre necessidade.

Spinoza has gained acceptance into Hebrew culture in the last two centuries, a period that includes the Jewish Haskalah in Europe, the culture created in Eretz Yisrael in the pre-statehood days, and contemporary Israeli culture. This acceptance is rather intimate by nature. Hebrew authors and their readers turned to Spinoza to clarify their own problems. To these audiences, Spinoza was not only a great philosopher, whose writings are worth interpreting and spreading. He was also perceived as someone who could help formulate what Judaism is and learn the possible meaning it can find in the world of Jews who had moved away from a religious lifestyle.

This paper presents a profile of the research on Spinoza’s philosophy in Brazil, providing information concerning the beginning of the academic work, its place of origin and influence, the leading training centers, and the aspects of Spinoza’s philosophy that are most studied. First, it presents a brief history of Spinoza’s presence in Brazil and the beginning of academic studies on the author. Next, data is shown on the current state of training of philosophy researchers on Spinoza in Brazil. The data was obtained from the CNPq Lattes Platform, which brings together information on all Brazilian researchers affiliated with universities and research institutes. Spinoza’s philosophy was absent from intellectual circles in Brazil during the colonial period and started to be mentioned in Brazil only in the nineteenth century. Only with the strengthening of universities in the twentieth century did Spinoza become the object of investigation by many researchers.

In this paper, I survey some prominent developments in Spinoza scholarship in English-speaking countries in the past quarter-century. Picking up where Tom Cook left off in his analysis of the reception of Spinoza in Anglo-American philosophy in the hundred years after the founding of the Vereniging Het Spinozahuis (1897–1997) (“Spinoza's Place in Twentieth Century's Anglo-American Philosophy”), I seek to identify some of the main currents in the rich profusion of twenty-first century Spinoza scholarship in the USA, UK, Canada, and Australia. Scholarship on Spinoza’s metaphysics has continued to blossom, harkening back in some respects to the idealist interpretations with which Cook opens his survey. But whereas there was a notable lack of scholarly works on Spinoza’s moral and political philosophy in the twentieth century, there is now an abundance of scholarship in these fields. I will conclude by examining the reach of Spinozism in the twenty-first century, looking at the ways in which scholars and journalists have presented Spinoza’s philosophy to a non-academic readership, and exploring the ways in which contemporary metaphysicians and philosophers of emotion and cognition have cast their work under the “brand” of Spinozism.

This short introduction presents the background context from which this special issue originated. It briefly sketches how the Dutch Spinoza Society (Vereniging het Spinozahuis) organized two conferences, one in 1997 and one in 2023, with an increasing focus on reflecting on the spreading of Spinoza’s thought in different countries. The papers published here are mostly derived from the 2023 conference, although they are continuous with the longer-term project already initiated in 1997.

This paper began as an address at the 100th anniversary celebration of the Vereniging het Spinozahuis in Amsterdam in 1997. I trace the highlights of Spinoza reception and scholarship in the Anglo-American philosophical community from the late nineteenth to the late twentieth century. Beginning with the British Idealists’ enthusiasm for Spinoza as a systematic metaphysician, I move through the indifference of the (anti-metaphysical) positivists to the renewal of interest among more naturalistically-minded analytical philosophers in the second half of the twentieth century. Along the way there are brief discussions of a few individual thinkers who engaged with Spinoza in especially interesting or influential ways, such as Caird, Santayana, Russell, Wolfson, Hampshire, and Curley.

A pesar de que Paul Ricoeur no ha escrito una obra sobre Spinoza, muchos autores han señalado la relevancia del pensamiento del filósofo holandés, y sobre todo de su Ética, en la obra de aquel. Este trabajo busca evidenciar la importancia de la noción spinoziana de conatus en la propuesta hermenéutica y ontológica del filósofo francés, analizando de modo específico un importante nodo conceptual del último estudio de Sí mismo como otro. El análisis tendrá particularmente en cuenta los pasajes de la obra de Spinoza que cita, buscando ampliar su comprensión en el contexto en que se encuentran, para ver si, de esta manera, se puede confirmar la mencionada relevancia de la filosofía de Spinoza en la filosofía de Ricoeur.

The challenge at the center of this paper is to reconcile three explicit assertions that Spinoza makes in his Ethics: 1. Rational self-esteem is “a joy born of the fact that a man considers himself and his own power of acting”; 2. The power of acting of each singular thing is nothing but the actual essence of the thing; 3. Reason cannot explain the essence of any singular thing. My aim in this paper is to provide an account of how reason, despite its inability to grasp singular essences, can make our singular power of acting accessible to us and thereby ground our proper self-esteem. I will argue that to resolve the puzzle, we must recognize a distinction, within the actual (durational) existence of any singular thing, between two senses of the term “power of acting,” or “perfection,” in accordance with the distinction between essence and existence of finite modes. On this basis, I will explain in what sense reason can be said to grasp our singular “power of acting” and to thereby ground our proper self-esteem, and how the twofold sense of “power of acting” underlies the distinction between rational self-esteem and the animi acquiescentia of intuitive knowledge.

Zamanın Bittiği Yer, Can Eryümlü tarafından 1999’da yayımlanan fantastik ögeler barındıran, sembolik bir romandır. Roman, bilinenden oldukça farklı ve sıra dışı bir dünyada, bir kitabın içinde, başlar. Yediği kitap sayfalarını okumayı öğrenen bir “kitap kurdu”, dünyaya geldiği kitabı terk edip kitaplar arası bir yolculuğa başlar. Yediği her kitaptan yeni bilgiler öğrenir; öğrendikçe de merakı artar. Bir noktadan sonra da benliğini, toplumunu, cinselliği, inancı, zamanı, ölümü ve varoluşu sorgulamaya başlar. Roman “özgürlüğe” yolculuk olarak nitelendirilebilecek en temel insani etik anlayışına dayanmaktadır. Dünyaya geldiği kitaptan başlayarak özgürlüğü arayan kitap kurdu kısıtlı olanaklarına rağmen bulduğu cevaplarla 20 Ağustos 1977’de fırlatılan Voyager 2 uzay aracına ulaşır. Zamanın Bittiği Yer, insan ve yaşamına dair en temel soruları soran, varlık ve hiçlik kavramlarına değinen bir romandır. Can Eryümlü, bir kitap kurdunun bakış açısını kullanarak insan ve toplum normlarına karşı eleştirel bir tavır takınır. Özellikle bireysel gelişmeyi engelleyici toplumsal “normlar” üzerine yazar dikkatle durur. Bu çalışmada amaç romanda yazarın satır aralarına yerleştirdiği “varlık felsefesi ve varoluşsal” soru ve sorunları ne şekilde ele aldığı tespite çalışılacaktır. Özellikle Baruch Spinoza’nın varlık felsefesine dair görüşleri çerçevesinde roman incelenecektir. Romanın yapısal ve tematik incelemesinin yanı sıra romanda yer alan ve insan ve toplum açısından sembolik değerler barındıran bazı kavramlara da değinilecektir.

Spinoza recognizes that worldly pleasures are not contrary to the life of the philosophical sage, but such pursuits must be carefully directed. He distinguishes between a joy that affects only some parts of the body (titillatio) and joy that extends through the body as a whole (hilaritas or “cheerfulness”). Titillation can be excessive, since it can blind us to our other needs. But cheerfulness cannot be excessive, since the whole body is improved at once. In his account of cheerfulness, Spinoza can be understood to be describing the life of a liefhebber, which is the Dutch term for a connoisseur, or an enlightened and discriminating consumer of worldly pleasures. It is a strikingly appropriate discussion given his own historical context, in which the Dutch culture found itself suddenly in possession of delights from around the world. This paper will explore Spinoza’s account of pleasure and cheerfulness in its context, with reference to other authors who were wrestling with the problem of finding the appropriate place for worldly pleasures in a culture of broadly Calvinist sympathies.

Affect-based studies consider that peoples’ lives and behaviors cannot be entirely grasped and understood by rational choice models. The main goal of this article is to understand how factors like sexuality and migration affect the relations between people and spaces. Following Spinoza’s Ethics and subsequent interpretations, the article considers that bodies are influenced by previous interactions and act accordingly, and that space is a relational mode of substance perceived through attributes and modes affecting individuals and articulating the relationship of space, sexuality, and migration. This research studies same-sex-attracted men who moved to Tijuana, Mexico. Results show that affects (expressed through actions and passions) inform people’s relations to space based on their valorization of life events and expectations; that the meanings of space are personally constructed, relational, volatile, and invisible to others; and that most interviewees didn’t feel comfortable avowing to the gay identity but identified themselves as such, since, to some extent, gayness can escape from the moral stigma of male-male interaction in Latin America.

The prior issue of Krisis (42:1) published Critical Naturalism: A Manifesto, with the aim to instigate a debate of the issues raised in this manifesto – the necessary re-thinking of the role (and the concept) of nature in critical theory in relation to questions of ecology, health, and inequality. Since Krisis considers itself a place for philosophical debates that take contemporary struggles as starting point, it issued an open call and solicited responses to the manifesto. This is one of the sixteen selected responses, which augment, specify, or question the assumptions and arguments of the manifesto.

Este trabajo se inserta en la discusión sobre la filosofía de la mente de Spinoza, específicamente en torno a si ofrece o no una teoría de la consciencia. Sostenemos que sí lo hace y que se explica a través de la articulación de varios conceptos según una particular lectura del llamado «paralelismo». Procedemos de la siguiente manera. Primero ofrecemos una caracterización preliminar de definición spinoziana de mente. Entonces damos una interpretación de la ontología. Por último, aplicamos esta lectura a la relación mente-cuerpo, deteniéndonos en la física, las ideas de ideas y el conatus.

O contexto social e do trabalho nas organizações hipermodenas é perpassado por mecanismos de dominação psicológica e pela gestão do afetivo, o que pode ser observado nas práticas de recursos humanos que enfatizam um modo de trabalhar com as emoções pautado na subjetividade, fonte de controle e de domínio. Essas relações acabam por comprometer o bem estar dos indivíduos e provocar seu sofrimento físico e psicológico. No controle dos afetos, a alegria tende a ser vinculada, assujeitada e instrumentalizada em um contexto ideológico, no qual o indivíduo é incentivado a desenvolver um amor entusismado com a organização. Este é o cenário em que se desenvolve o presente artigo, na intenção de estabelecer reflexões, de ordem teórica-crítica, em torno da alegria. O objetivo volta-se para compreender a dinâmica da alegria, tanto como afeto de resistência, quanto fonte para o advento do sujeito, especialmente no contexto organizacional, na expectativa de que estas discussões possam referenciar pesquisas empíricas no campo dos Estudos Organizacionais. Contempla-se a alegria como fonte de um combate inteligente e de negação da morte, instrumento que se contrapõe à destrutividade. Reconhece-a também como fonte para o advento do sujeito, um ser não assujeitado, que produz história e não é apenas produzido por ela. É a partir de discussões interdisciplinares do campo dos estudos organizacionais, da psicossociologia crítica e da filosofia, envolvendo significativamente as contribuições de Spinoza, que se pretende colaborar com reflexões quanto às possibilidades de liberdade e emancipação do sujeito na gestão hipermoderna. O estudo possibilitou a compreensão da alegria como potência de resistência capaz de auxiliar na microemancipação do indivíduo ao fazer uso de brechas civilizatórias no ambiente de trabalho. A alegria enquanto afeto potencializador daquele que pretende fazer-se sujeito de sua própria vida, apesar de todos os determinismos sociais e registros psíquicos.

This article intends to read the profound dynamics that characterise the current war in the light of certain classical philosophical categories such as the relationship established by Hegel between substance and subject, the difference between the concept of substance and the concept of function as it was discussed by Cassirer, and finally the binomial power over life and right of death reread by Foucault in a biopolitical key. In the light of these polarities, it is in fact possible to identify two opposing worldviews – on which depend two completely different ways of understanding the function of the state, the weight to be ascribed to rights, and even two different ways of conceiving and conducting war – that do not necessarily coincide with the two opposing sides in the field.

El problema del determinismo y la libertad en el ser humano ha sido un debate filosófico siempre fructífero. En esta discusión Spinoza es un referente al respecto, pues ya desde la publicación de sus obras ha generado controversia en torno a la problemática. Este trabajo busca clarificar el concepto de necesidad que utiliza Spinoza en su filosofía, para así desentrañar el sentido del determinismo que construye a partir de él. Dentro del análisis muestro que en la filosofía de Spinoza no hay una clara distinción entre necesidad lógica y necesidad metafísica. Además, argumento que los conceptos de contingencia y posibilidad son cuestiones de dicto y no de re en la filosofía del autor. Es decir, que ellas no son propiedades de las cosas mismas, sino maneras de hablar sobre ellas. Finalmente, concluyo que la tesis de Spinoza en torno al determinismo se debe entender principalmente como una teoría necesitarista, la cual puede ser compatible con un determinado sentido de la libertad en el ser humano.

Bu makale kapsamında, XII. yüzyılda yaşamış önemli Yahudi din âlimlerinden Musa bin Meymûn (öl. 601/1204) ile XVII. yüzyılda yaşamış olan ve düşünceleri neticesinde ateist olduğu suçlamasıyla yirmi dört yaşındayken aforoz edilip bağlı bulunduğu Yahudi cemaatinden kovulan Spinoza’nın (öl. 1088/1677) vahiy ve nübüvvet anlayışları ele alınmıştır. Spinoza, Teolojik-Politik İnceleme adlı eserinde, teolojinin felsefeden ayrılması gerekliliğini göstermek amacındadır. Spinoza’nın bu arzusu onu, İbn Meymûn’la ve onun temsil ettiği gelenekle karşı karşıya getirmiştir. Neticede Spinoza’nın vahiy ve nübüvvet konusunda İbn Meymûn’dan etkilendiği ve onunla bir hesaplaşmaya girdiği görülmektedir. Onun İbn Meymûn’dan hangi bakımdan etkilendiği ya da onunla nasıl bir hesaplaşmaya girdiği makalenin asıl konusunu teşkil etmektedir. Çalışmamız giriş, ana bölüm ve sonuç olarak üç bölümden oluşmaktadır. Giriş bölümünde öncelikle vahiy kavramının ne ifade ettiğine ve hem İslam düşünürlerinin hem de İbn Meymûn’un beslendiği ana kaynak olması nedeniyle Platon ile Aristoteles’in kehanet ve rüya hakkındaki görüşlerine kısaca değinilmiştir. Ayrıca Spinoza’nın İbn Meymûn’dan etkilenmesi veya onunla hesaplaşmasının, İbn Meymûn’un da mensubu olduğu İslam filozoflarının temsil ettiği gelenekle alakalı olmasından dolayı giriş bölümünde, bazı İslam filozoflarının görüşlerine de ana hatlarıyla değinme gereği duyulmuştur. Bunu yaparken Müslüman filozofların ilklerinden ve en önemlilerinden kabul edilen Kindî (öl. 252/866?), Fârâbî (öl. 339/950) ve İbn Sinâ’nın (öl. 428/1037) düşüncelerine özlü şekilde değinilmesi yeterli görülmüştür. Bu arada tarihsel açıdan İbn Meymûn’la Spinoza arasında bir yerde duran diğer bir Yahudi filozof Levi ben Gershom’un (öl. 745/1344) fikirleri de kısaca ele alınmıştır. Bu filozofların düşüncelerinden yola çıkılarak vahyin mütehayyile kuvvetiyle, ayrıca rüya ve kehanetle ilgisi gösterilmeye çalışılmıştır. Çalışmanın asıl bölümünde ise öncelikle İbn Meymûn’un vahiy ve nübüvvet anlayışı incelenmiş, akabinde bu, Spinoza’nın vahiy ve nübüvvet anlayışıyla mukayese edilmiştir. İbn Meymûn’un nübüvvet anlayışı incelenirken yer yer İslam filozoflarından etkilendiği kısımlara değinilmiştir. Bu mukayesede bilhassa İbn Meymûn’un Delâletu’l-Hâirîn adlı eseriyle Spinoza’nın Teolojik-Politik İnceleme adlı eseri ana kaynaklar olarak değerlendirilmiştir. Bu çalışma neticesinde hem iki düşünürün teolojik yaklaşımının daha iyi anlaşılması hem de Aydınlanmanın müjdecilerinden biri sayılan Spinoza’nın eleştirel dahi olsa İbn Meymûn’a kadar uzanan düşünce kodları gösterilmek istenmiştir. İbn Meymûn’a kadar uzanan bu kodların aynı zamanda İslam düşünce dünyasına uzandığı da vurgulanmak istenmiştir. Bu makalede, konunun kapsamı iki düşünürün peygamber, vahiy ve vahyin oluşmasında rol alan enfüsi ve afaki etmeler ile vahyin dili yönündeki düşünceleriyle sınırlandırılmıştır. İki düşünürün teolojiye ait mucize gibi diğer görüşlerindeki farklılıklar ya da benzerlikler makalenin kapsamı dışında tutulmuştur.

The letter is a communication tool used by many thinkers and scientists. It is generally written to disseminate ideas, criticize, and open discussion. The tradition of philosophizing with letters is a method and a form of philosophical discourse widely used by Muslim and Western philosophers. It is known that the letters written by philosophers in previous periods are public documents that are read and discussed not only by their correspondents but also by those concerned. The reason why this is so is the widespread use of ideas at that time. In particular, it can be said that letters written in the 17th century serve the function of scientific-academic articles today. The 'Letters on Evil' is the name given to the eight letters Spinoza exchanged between 1664 and 1665, containing discussions with Willem van Blyenbergh on the issue of evil. This name was given by Gilles Deleuze. The most fundamental discussion in these letters is the problem of evil. These letters are texts in which Spinoza deals with the problem of evil and other related issues and evaluates different solutions. In these letters, Spinoza and Blyenbergh discuss major issues in relation to the issue of evil, such as God's creation and contribution, the nature of will and actions, the nature and source of evil, the structure of the Bible, lack, and perfection. Offering a different perspective, Spinoza used the concepts used by theism while evaluating these issues but attributed new meanings to them. In the face of Spinoza's new and different explanations, Blyenbergh repeatedly asked the subjects he had difficulty in understanding in each of his letters. Although the first letters started with very good wishes, the expressions in the following letters became harsh, and in the last letter, Spinoza firmly declared that he would end his letters, believing that they could not come to an agreement. Although Blyenbergh was described as ignorant and bigoted by Spinozists, some researchers claimed that he was not ignorant, on the contrary, he asked very important questions to Spinoza, even unanswered. Although these letters written about evil gave Spinoza's thoughts on the subject in a limited way, it can be said that the only text in which his discussions on the problem of evil are together is the "Letters on Evil". For Spinoza, evil is an illusion and a product of the human mind, and it is neither a situation in which God's will can be spoken of nor an act for which man is morally responsible. Although the fact that evil is unreal or an illusion has an attractive side, it can be said that this claim does not offer a solution when the moral responsibility of human beings and their efforts to make sense of life is considered. As a matter of fact, it can be claimed that it is against our intuition to say that there are many evils we witness, and pain and sorrow as a result, even in the universe or in our environment. It can be argued that characterizing and ignoring evil as a rational being provides an explanation rather than a solution to the problem of evil, which is the main problem of the philosophy of religion. His views on God's will and human freedom in particular offer a new and different approach for that period. It can be seen that this approach is against theological traditions and is open to discussion. In Spinoza's thought, everything necessarily occurs in the order of God or Nature.

From his earliest writings we learn that, for Spinoza, God is not some identifiable thing (res) but is rather the ultimate activity or being (ens) by which all things are identified and differentiated. In this way Spinoza shifts the focus of the meaning of “substance” from being something that has characteristics to the activity whereby all things come to express characteristics. Like Piero Di Vona, I suggest that this ens–res distinction has its origin in Avicenna and is developed by Aquinas, Suárez, and Heereboord. Unlike Di Vona, I argue that Spinoza’s distinction of substance, attribute, and mode parallels Suárez’s distinction between (1) ens–as–noun (τò esse), (2) ens–as–participle, and (3) res, in that for both Suárez and Spinoza, the distinction between ens–as–a–noun and things (res) is intelligible only in terms of ens as the principle by which things are identified. Since that principle is not itself a thing but rather the process by which things are differentiated from one another in virtue of their attributes, I propose that “substance” for Spinoza is best described as the activity by which all that exists comes to be. I conclude that the attempt to provide subjectivist or objectivist interpretations of attributes inevitably misses the point that Spinoza makes in describing God as the source of existence by treating substance as some thing rather than the activity or being (ens) in terms of which all things are intelligible.

I argue alongside some other scholars that there is a plausible reading of Spinoza’s philosophy of suicide which holds both of the following tenets: first, that suicides occur because of external conditions, and second, that there are at least some suicides which are rational. These two tenets require special attention because they seem to be the source of significant tension. For Spinoza, if one’s cognitions are to be the most adequate, they must be “disposed internally” (E2p29s/G II 114), or determined more from one’s own mental nature than from “fortuitous encounters” with other things (E2p29s/G II 114). It may seem there is a conflict, then, in saying both that there are rational suicides in the Spinozist framework, and that suicides must always be a result of external conditions: it seems a suicide simply cannot be rational if it is the result of external conditions. But this tension, it will be shown, can be dissolved. Once this tension is dealt with, I offer some brief closing arguments. I explain how this reading of Spinoza’s philosophy of suicide can satisfy a call for new suicide research which avoids forms of over-individualism and epistemic injustice, and which encourages us to abolish oppressive conditions that lead to rational suicides.

This is an obituary on Wolfgang Bartuschat (May 13, 1938 – August 10, 2022), an eminent Spinoza scholar at Universität Hamburg. As an interpreter, Bartuschat emphasized the human and individual perspective in Spinoza’s metaphysical and political thought. Bartuschat will also be remembered as an excellent translator and editor.

There is a longstanding alliance between rationalism and realism concerning universals. Spinoza does not disrupt that alliance. The nature of a Spinozistic substance, after all, is a universal. That is what I argue here. My central point is that a realist conception of universals is a key presumption behind Spinoza’s case for substance monism, a view historically recognized as a natural outgrowth of realism’s toleration of strict identity in diversity. After defending my central point (and, in addition, the secondary point that Spinoza is likely cognizant of this presumption), I respond to two concerns. First, I explain how the nature of a Spinozistic substance is a universal even though there can be only one instance of that nature. Second, I explain how Spinoza’s infamous rejection of universals does not contradict the fact that the nature of a substance is a universal.

The article discusses The Lobster (2015) by Yorgos Lanthimos in connection with the concepts of transcendence and immanence, morality and ethics. This film is a dystopia that critically reveals the relationship between modernity and morality and draws attention with its objections to transcendental moral values. Therefore, in this study, the film is the subject of a discussion mainly focusing on the loss of control of modern individuals over their own lives under the pressure of transcendent values and moral systems that produce hierarchy. The film is evaluated on the axis of Spinoza’s approach to immanence ethics. The distinction between morality and ethics, which stands out in Spinoza’s philosophy of immanence, and the association of morality with transcendence and ethics with immanence form the basis of the analysis of the film. Criticisms of transcendence and morality are hidden in the ironic style that is based on Cartesian oppositions such as nature–culture, good–evil, mind–body, woman–man, rule-illegal, similarity–difference in the film. In addition, the emphasis on the lack of emotion in the film is an important part of the critical style of the film in terms of the role that Spinoza assigns to the affects in the context of activating the conatus.

The attention paid in the Giornale critico della filosofia italiana to the major exponents of seventeenth-century philosophical rationalism, from its foundation by Giovanni Gentile in 1920 until 1979, reveals important changes that provide us with interesting information on Italian Neo-idealism. The small number of articles on Descartes can be interpreted as the result of an overall approach – sanctioned by Gentile – different from that of Hegel, who considered Descartes as the founder of modern philosophy. For Gentile, Descartes represents a stage in the history of philosophy spanning from Humanism to Spinoza, and, in a more particular Italian perspective, from Campanella to Vico. This interpretative scheme persisted also under the direction of Ugo Spirito, when Cartesianism continued to receive little theoretical and historical attention, with the exception of Eugenio Garin’s contributions. In the years from 1945 to 1979, the Giornale critico emphasized instead the interest for Spinoza, a very important author for Gentile, up to the double monographic issue published on the occasion of the third centenary of Spinoza’s death (1977). In turn, the lack of interest for Leibniz was constant and evident from the small number of articles published from 1920 to 1979, which were furthermore not particularly connected with the international, coeval Leibniz scholarship.

Examining the period from the 1920s to the 1970s, one of the key features of the Rivista di filosofia is a lasting interest in the Renaissance and Vico, while the focus on seventeenth-century metaphysics is significantly more time-bound and linked to the activity of some prominent figures in the journal such as Piero Martinetti, Eugenio Colorni, and Gioele Solari. The rise of the Neo-Enlightenment caused a radical change in the editorial choices, and turned the journal’s focus toward the empiricist tradition and the debate on historiographical methodologies.

The immortality of the soul is one of the most important philosophical issues that are closely related to man and his destiny. How to understand immortality has a profound and direct impact on human lifestyle. Philosophers and other thinkers who have thought about man and his knowledge, his nature and destiny; the issue of immortality has always occupied their minds. In this article, an attempt has been made to compare and analyze the views of two prominent philosophers, namely Sadr al-Muta'allehin and Spinoza, who have thought about the soul, immortality and human destiny and have presented a novel and different point of view. Sadr al-Muta'allehin according to his special method in philosophy; That is, the use of argument, revelation, and intuition explains the soul and immortality, and finally offers a rational answer based on logical arguments, which has led to the theory of "physical occurrence and spiritual survival" of the soul. As a rationalist philosopher, Spinoza also has a unique view of the soul and immortality that differs from that of other philosophers. In many of his works, he has studied the issue of the soul and its nature and how to explain immortality. Based on "complete ideas", he justifies and explains the immortality of the soul in other ways. In this research, Spinoza and Mulla Sadra's views on the issue of the soul and its immortality have been studied with an analytical-comparative view.

In a conversation with Manthia Diawara aboard the Queen Mary II in 2009, Édouard Glissant elaborated his definition of Relation, a concept that he formally presented in his book Poétique de la relation in 1990, but that emerged out of years of writing about creolization and cultural action in the Caribbean. Sitting at the ship’s window, with the Atlantic Ocean crashing around him, Glissant explains that “the truth that is increasingly coming to light about Black reality in the New World is the truth of multiplicity, the truth of the step towards the Other.”

El presente trabajo busca indagar la teoría del conocimiento spinoziana a partir de una hipótesis de lectura que vincula la univocidad de lo real con la ciencia intuitiva. El objetivo es demostrar que el acceso cognoscitivo que brinda el tercer género de conocimiento es el único que permite conocer la totalidad de la Naturaleza. En ese sentido, se mostrará: por un lado, que tanto la imaginación como la razón nos brindan conocimientos incompletos y sesgados de lo real; por el otro, que, aún en su insuficiencia, ambas perspectivas cognoscitivas son auténticas y verdaderas, y se hallan presentes en el conocimiento de tercer género. Por último, se mostrará la coherencia del sistema spinoziano que postula la ciencia intuitiva, en tanto conocimiento de la unidad que subyace bajo todas las perspectivas, como destino ético humano.

The opinion of Friedrich Nietzsche on the theme of subjectivity is well-known: the subject does not exist; it is merely the theoretical hypostatization of a phantom. In Nietzsche's works the subject appears to be something transitory and destined to disappear, as nothing more than a ripple in the vast ocean of the will to power. However, can the question truly be considered closed? In this paper, I will demonstrate the opposite, showing how it is possible to still provide some Nietzschean positive notion of the subject. Initially, a brief excursus will be necessary to outline the main scientific sources employed by Nietzsche in developing his concept of the individual. Secondly, I will focus on certain aspects of the works of two authors who are very different from each other, although akin in spirit, with the aim of making it more evident how one can speak of the individual in Nietzsche's philosophy. These two authors are Baruch Spinoza and Thomas Pradeu. Through Deleuze's famous lectures on Spinoza, I will show how it is possible to postulate an understanding of individuality that is not entirely fixed and monolithic, adopting the concepts of Bauplan, ratio, and strategy. I deemed it important to also dedicate attention to Pradeu for at least two reasons. Firstly, because the theme of Immunology, to which he devoted his most important works, is strictly related to the issues of defining the borders of the individual: a good immune system can work only if there is an individual to protect, opposed to every other external body, understood as enemies. Secondly, because Pradeu too argues that an individual - while maintaining its unity - is never something rigid. Finally, I highlight why it is crucial to speak of the Nietzschean individual. The theme of the individual is pivotal in Nietzsche’s Moral Philosophy: the only possible way to think of an Ethics “beyond Good and Evil” is the path of understanding Ethics as Ethology - to use a Deleuzian term. An Ethics of this kind – focusing on bodily joy to the point that it can even be defined as medical in its nature – can only find its keystone precisely in the question upon what is a body – which in turn is dependent on the question upon what is an individual.

In one of his blog posts, Martin Lenz refers to Wittgenstein’s Rabbit-duck; a picture puzzle that can interpretated as depicting a rabbit or a duck. The point of this analogy is that what we are perceiving corresponds to our personal experiences which can be shaped in discussions with others even though we remain incapable to grasp both pictures at once. The starting point of the following dialogue is exactly such a Rabbit-duck-illusion. Reading Lenz’ chapter on Spinoza again and again, I remained unsure whether contrariety or agreement is the fundamental relation which warrants his claim that minds are intrinsically social. The aim of this text is to enter into dialogue on this subject and examine the problems and advantages of both readings. Must it necessarily be the case that contrariety and agreement are mutually exclusive like the two parts of the Rabbit-duck?

Martin Lenz introduces Spinoza to us as a bundle theorist of mind, for whom there cannot be a single finite mind. Since Spinoza conceives of the mind as the idea of the body, a reinterpretation of his theory of mind will have a bodily concurrence. As a corporeal interlude to Lenz’ Spinozist theory of mind, I enquire what follows for the latter if one takes into account more explicitly the structural complexity of the attribute of extension, expressing itself in the plurality and variability of bodies. While Lenz reads Spinoza through a lens of intersubjectivity and parallelism, my reflection leads to the consideration that the plurality and variability of bodies might call for a transindividual rather than an intersubjective account and for conceiving of body and mind as equal rather than parallel. That this complicates Lenz’ account of the identity of the mind over time is an avail rather than a problem. It invites developing Lenz’ reading beyond what the context of his book allows, helping us to navigate the intricate dynamics in which we strive for our bodies to become more capable, our minds more eternal.

Do minds and ideas connect, interact, or even depend on each other, and if so, how exactly do they connect and interact? How to conceive of the mode and process of minds and ideas being in a network and connected in some way, that is, being intersubjective or social? Martin Lenz’s study Socializing Minds (2022) convincingly shows that, contrary to widespread opinion in philosophy of mind, at least some early modern philosophers, here Spinoza, Locke, and Hume, actually give a positive answer to the first question and present models that respond to the second question, thus, addressing what Lenz proposes to call ‘the contact problem’ and repudiating the idea that mentalism is necessarily bound to individualism. In this comment, I focus on a detail in Lenz’s reconstruction of Spinoza’s ‘metaphysical model’ of intersubjectivity of minds, namely the Aristotelian physical dynamism that would underlie Spinoza’s idea of the interaction of minds. While I agree that Spinoza’s model of the interaction of minds refers to the Aristotelian conception of motion, I argue that the guiding principle in natural motion is best understood not only in terms of contrariety but also in terms of complementarity. A closer reading of Aristotle’s theory of motion (kinēsis, metabolē) identifies two approaches to natural motion, one based on contrary principles, the other on complementary principles or powers (dynameis; potentiae). I suggest conceiving them as two sources for modelling natural motion and thus as two resources for a kinetic modelling of intersubjectivity and sociality. Admittedly, my proposal goes beyond Spinoza’s model of ideas in contact, and probably beyond Lenz's interpretation of that model, but it might enrich the imagination of the socialising of minds and ideas from a kinetic point of view, which, at least as I understand it, is precisely what Spinoza and Lenz thrive on.

The papers that Jean-Marie Beyssade dedicated to the work of Baruch Spinoza have been recently published under the title Études sur Spinoza. This review offers a general presentation of the volume, as well as a summary of some of the papers seeking to bring to light their underlying continuity by emphasizing Beyssade’s methodological approach and his interpretative preoccupation with the problem of ethical salvation in the Ethics.

Abstract: This is a reply to the comments by Daniel Bella, Lorina Buhr, Andrea Blättler, and Ivo Eichhorn. The individual responses attempt to identify the main challenges of the pieces and sketch answers to questions or elaborations on issues raised.

That we think our own thoughts and that in thinking these thoughts we are with ourselves, independent of others, is a persistent belief. Martin Lenz unsettles this belief in his volume “Socializing Minds” by showing how Spinoza, Locke and Hume already envisioned and to a certain extent conceptualized more relational or intersubjective ways of how we think. Especially his reconstruction of Spinoza’s theory of the mind as a “metaphysical model” goes far in laying the ground for a strong relational account of mental activities. This short commentary is guided by the assumption that a critical reading of certain terms, can help to strengthen such an endeavor. It examines the notion of appropriation and its connection to property in the construction of the subject to be found in the margins of Lenz’s chapter on Spinoza as a Lockean trace, which risks precluding the philosophical and political alternative Spinoza’s anti-dualism has to offer. Finally, one such alternative tendency in Spinoza’s philosophy is envisaged, which could strengthen Lenz’s account.

This article addresses Steven Nadler’s response to my objections to his reading of Spinoza’s free person (homo liber). Nadler argues that there are no clear and significant differences between the free person and the wise person (vir sapiens) in their character or in the role they play in Spinoza’s moral philosophy; in fact, they are one and the same. I begin by critically examining three inferences which Nadler’s reading in part relies on. I then address the differences between the contexts in which Spinoza explicitly invokes the free person and the wise person. I argue that even though there may not be significant differences between the free person and the wise person in terms of their character and comportment, there is still reason to think that the free person plays a particular role in Spinoza’s moral philosophy—one which does not hinge on the attainment of the cognitive and affective excellence represented by the wise person at the end of the Ethics.

Abstract: This is the introduction to the Special Issue Intersubjective Readings of Spinoza. Critical Comments on Martin Lenz’ Socializing Minds: Intersubjectivity in Early Modern Philosophy, New York: Oxford University Press 2022. It provides an overview of the topic that the papers in this issue are centered around as well as an outline of main theses of the pertinent book and acknowledgments for the related workshop.

This paper is a response to Sanem Soyarslan’s objections to my reading of Spinoza’s free person (homo liber). She argues that on my interpretation the free person, unlike the wise person (vir sapiens), while subject to passive affects, does not experience bondage to the passions; and so only the latter, but not the former, can serve as a viable “model of human nature.” I argue that, in fact, the free person and the wise person are, for Spinoza, one and the same indiviual, and thus constitute a single ideal model that we can more or less closely approximate.