I propose a discussion on my article "Some notes on the individual process of liberation in Spinoza". The article has been published in ARHE, Journal of Philosophy, FACULTY OF PHILOSOPHY, Department of Philosophy Novi Sad, XX, 39, 2023, pp. 275–305. All comments are welcome (except for insults). A central theme of Spinoza’s Ethica is the description of the individual’s exposition to the emergence of passions: the individual’s mind is constitutively liable to being passive in relation to the influences exercised on the mind by reality since the mind is a part of nature. As regards the individual’s condition, being passive means having passions: passions bring the individual to a condition of mental enslavement due to the influence coming from the external reality. Spinoza tries to find a way out of the passions: through the analysis of the structure of reality and of the individual’s mind, Spinoza shows that the development of knowledge of reality in the mind is the solution for the process of liberation of the mind. The power of the individual’s mind consists in the knowledge of reality: therefore, the possibility, for the individual, to reach an authentic power of mind consists in the acquisition of the knowledge of reality. This acquisition comes about exclusively through the appropriate education. Through the knowledge, the individual becomes able to counteract his being acted on by the external reality: he can lead his life instead of being steadily led by the influences coming from outside. We base our inquiry on Spinoza’s Ethica.
Congrats for your philosophical discourse on Spinoza; am in agreement with your observations and conclusions. Freedom means to follow the determined conatus which is man striving to persist in his own being. When applied to human beings, the general law of self-preservation has distinctive importance to Spinoza's concept of freedom. Man reaches happiness through understanding. Happiness and well-being lie in the life of reason. Ethics, for Spinoza, is a matter of liberation from the bondage to passive affects through the cultivation of reason.
Spinoza's God is the cause of all things because all things follow necessarily and causally from his divine nature. This is in contrast to the ancient Hebrew idea of God as a transcendent being, who causes a world separate from himself to exist by creating it out of nothing.
According to Spinoza's definition of freedom, a thing is said to be free which exists by the mere necessity of its own nature and is determined in its actions by itself alone. Spinoza believed that he had liberated reason from the perils of superstition without eradicating the valuable effects of faith.
______
It is well known that Spinoza’s personal motto, engraved on his signet ring, was Caute (“Cautiously” or “Be cautious”).
Dear Professor Stephen I. Ternyik ,
I thank you very much for your observations!
I will further analyse the question of the liberation in Spinoza. It is a very rich subject.
I thank you very much again!
Yours sincerely,
Gianluigi Segalerba
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Linguistics
- Composition Studies
- Publications