tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11224468.post114884176245797145..comments2024-02-15T07:19:24.972-05:00Comments on The Daily Doubter: Finding SpinozaUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11224468.post-1149660840544900072006-06-07T02:14:00.000-04:002006-06-07T02:14:00.000-04:00I beware Damasio because of his apologetics for Fr...I beware Damasio because of his apologetics for Freud.Hume's Ghosthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13551684109760430351noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11224468.post-1149531750625898532006-06-05T14:22:00.000-04:002006-06-05T14:22:00.000-04:00Of the "modern" philosophers, only three included ...Of the "modern" philosophers, only three included any content on what we know as the emotions: Descartes, Spinoza, and "reason is a slave of the passions" Hume. Not even Nietzsche had much to say about this curious fact about Human Nature.<BR/><BR/>As noted, Spinoza is creditted with the first account of pantheism. A second reason to read him.<BR/><BR/>Spinoza was primarily a practical philosopher, so all his theory is entailed in his practical treatise: "Ethics." All of his works are accessible, and also a joy.<BR/><BR/>As for Damasio, philosophers know that a counterexample disproves a theorem, but for Damasio a counterexample instantiates a theory. Readers beware.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11224468.post-1149446821143544612006-06-04T14:47:00.000-04:002006-06-04T14:47:00.000-04:00There is a new great novel on Baruch Spinoza, publ...There is a new great novel on Baruch Spinoza, published by Northwestern University Press. The title is Conversation with Spinoza. Prizing ideas above all else, radical thinker Baruch Spinoza left little behind in the way of personal facts and furnishings. But what of the tug of necessity, the urgings of the flesh, to which this genius philosopher (and grinder of lenses) might have been no more immune than the next man-or the next character, as Baruch Spinoza becomes in this intriguing novel by the remarkable young Macedonian author Goce Smilevski. Smilevski's novel brings the thinker Spinoza, all inner life, into conversation with the outer, all-too-real facts of his life and his day--from his connection to the Jewish community of Amsterdam, his excommunication in 1656, and the emergence of his philosophical system to his troubling feelings for his fourteen-year-old Latin teacher Clara Maria van den Enden and later his disciple Johannes Casearius. From this conversation there emerges a compelling and complex portrait of the life of an idea--and of a man who tries to live that idea.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11224468.post-1148919418074352172006-05-29T12:16:00.000-04:002006-05-29T12:16:00.000-04:00Damasio noted also that Leibniz used to visit with...Damasio noted also that Leibniz used to visit with Spinoza and that he was a bit jealous of Spinoza's brilliance, telling someone, his brother if I recall correctly, to be careful about revealing ideas around Spinoza.<BR/><BR/>I'm not sure about Hume and Spinoza, but Bertrand Russell observed in The History of Western Philosophy that Spinoza might have been more famous if Hume had been more patient with him, whatever that might mean.Hume's Ghosthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13551684109760430351noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11224468.post-1148916577556260142006-05-29T11:29:00.000-04:002006-05-29T11:29:00.000-04:00What a coincidence – for some reason I’ve been thi...What a coincidence – for some reason I’ve been thinking a lot about Spinoza lately. To me, he should get more credit for his philosophy – but it seems to me that Leibniz and Hume get a lot more attention. I may be wrong about this, but I got the impression that Spinoza was very influential in a lot of Hume’s work. Of course, they’re both empiricists, so that would make sense to a certain extent anyway.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com