Spinoza

Moderated by Paul Hodapp

1 a radical who thought that destroying the personal god would destroy religion's political power and free humans from superstition.

2 why did S use a geometrical form for his argument?

3 why did he begin with god as the infinite substance? was he a pantheist? is his god/nature merely a form of a unified science system of everything viewed from 2 parallel perspectives-human activity as described in his ethics and a physics based on a geometry of extension, motion,, and rest. could S's physics be made consistent with modern science?

4 are there 3 kinds of knowledge-sensory of particular images, logical of the necessary connections of ideas, and an intuition of the whole of god/nature? does S hold a coherence or a correspondence theory of truth, or both.

5 what is an emotion for S? for us? are they both active and passive? how does desire as a motive fit with joy and sorrow? why does S reject free will as useful for humans to escape from the passive emotions.

6 how can we free ourselves from the slavery of the passive emotions? what is conatus? does every natural thing have a conatus

7 is the intellectual love of god/nature the highest, most blessed human power?

do you agree with hegel that you are either a spinozist or not philosopher?

what is the value of thinking with spinoza?

what to read? what you enjoy! i like the encyclopedias of philosophy, both the stanford and the internet. but i sometimes find wikipedia helpful.