In this commentary, I respond to the core question of Ruddick’s paper: How does the theoretical dethroning of humanity force us to reinvent ethics? In so doing, I expand on Spinoza’s profound contribution to the radical rethinking of the subject at the level of ontology. Although Ruddick invokes Spinoza, first and foremost, as a potential resource for ethics in light of climate disruption, I conclude that those resources offer only a glimmer of how to live differently. The work of re-imagination (...) at the level of metaphysics is flourishing, but we have yet to develop its implications for ethics and politics. (shrink)

Like any broad narrative about the history of ideas, this one involves a number of simplifications. My hope is that by taking a closer look Spinoza's notorious remarks on animals, we can understand better why it becomes especially urgent in this period as well as our own for philosophers to emphasize a distinction between human and nonhuman animals. In diagnosing the concerns that give rise to the desire to dismiss the independent purposes of animals, we may come to focus on (...) a new aspect of what needs to change about contemporary thinking on species divisions. In what follows, I will bring out Spinoza's contradictory and ambivalent remarks pertaining to the specific differences between humans and animals. It is my suspicion that this ambivalence continues to plague us today. Like Spinoza, we want to say that humans are like and unlike animals. As a simply descriptive claim, it may be true and innocuous. Yet, the way we affirm our proximity and distance from nonhuman animals requires careful attention. Spinoza viewed this proximity as a source of danger. We might do well to emphasize, with thinkers such as Donna Haraway (2003),how our proximity and difference are also sources of pleasure and power, both to be able to enjoy the affectionate bond that can often develop between humans and our animal companions but also to quell the anxiety that might encourage us to exploit and abuse them. (shrink)

Many authors in the field of Environmental Philosophy have claimed to be inspired by Spinoza's monism, which has traditionally been considered a form of pantheism because nature and God coincide. This idea has deep normative implications, as some environmental ethicists claim that wounding nature is the same as wounding God, which implies a resacralization of nature. In particular, we will focus on Arne Næss's Ecosophy (or Deep Ecology) to offer a current relevant example of the pantheist (or panentheist) worldview. However, (...) a new demarcation distinguishes pantheism from panentheism; in the latter, nature and God belong together but do not fully coincide, as in pantheism. Nevertheless, whether Spinoza is a panentheist, pantheist, or neither has yet to be fully determined, as well as whether his doctrine serves as a proper foundation for an ecology that attempts the aforementioned resacralization of nature. This article attempts to clarify these issues. (shrink)

In this paper I contrast the metaphysical philosophies of Benedict de Spinoza and the ‘sudden enlightenment’ tradition of Chan Buddhism. Spinoza’s expressivist philosophy, in which everything can be conceived via a lineage of finite causes terminating in substance as a metaphysical ground of all things, emphasises the relative sameness of all entities. By contrast, Chan’s philosophy of emptiness, which rests on the dependent co-origination of all entities, renders such comparison fundamentally meaningless. Having no source beyond dependent co-origination to generate a (...) thing’s distinct nature leads to a metaphysics in which, rather than being relatively similar or different, all things are at one and the same time absolutely the same and absolutely distinct. As a result, Spinoza grounds ethics wholly is sameness or similarity, whereas Chan transcends the dichotomy of sameness and difference and offers an environmental ethics grounded simultaneously in absolute sameness and absolute difference. As a result, in Spinoza’s case, the dissimilarity between human beings and the non-human world places limits on our concern for it. In Chan Buddhism, however, insight into the emptiness of all phenomena leads to a concern for all entities in their suchness, regardless of whether they are similar or different to human beings. As such, I argue that Chan is in a better position than Spinoza to develop a robust environmental ethic. (shrink)

The title of this issue, Spinoza Today', takes up a question central to Genevieve Lloyd's substantial oeuvre, whether she is writing about feminist philosophy or historical phi- losophers and movements. That is, how do we draw on past philosophers to address contemporary problems, while also doing justice to the context for which they wrote? More particularly, why be interested today in what Spinoza wrote in the seven teenth century? But also: How do we read so as to be attentive to (...) Spinoza's particular concerns, and without subordinating his insights to neat dichotomies that aid the teaching, if not the thinking, of his philosophy? (shrink)

Pantheism is a metaphysical and religious position. Broadly defined it is the view that (1) "God is everything and everything is God ... the world is either identical with God or in some way a self-expression of his nature" (H.P. Owen). Similarly, it is the view that (2) everything that exists constitutes a 'unity' and this all-inclusive unity is in some sense divine (A. MacIntyre). I begin with an account of what the pantheist's ethical position is formally likely to be (...) (e.g. objectivist etc.). I then discuss the relationship between pantheism and ecology in the context of the search for the metaphysical and ethical foundations for an ecological ethic. It is claimed that it is no accident that pantheism is often looked to for such foundations. (shrink)

In the Ethics,1 Spinoza presents a rigorous naturalistic view of man and nature. Man is a part of nature, a subject of the same domain—not a domain separate from it, nor a domain within that of nature. Man cannot act against nature or in an unnatural way; in comparison with any other part or creature of nature, man is not special, more important or qualitatively different. All general laws of nature apply equally to animals, inanimate objects, humans, God, the mind, (...) and the affects. Nature can be explicated based on necessary causes, and there are no extra-natural factors that affect it or anything in it: no supernatural power or metaphysical principles create or regulate it, and no separate methods of explanation .. (shrink)

This article explores the influence of Spinozism on the deep ecology movement and on new materialism. It questions the stance of supporters of the DEM because their ecosophies unwittingly anthropomorphise the more-than-human-world. It suggests that instead of humanising the ‘natural’ world, morality should be naturalised, that is, that the object of human expression of ethics should be the more-than-human world. Moreover, the article discusses Deleuze’s Spinozism that informs new materialism and argues that stripping the human of its ontological privilege does (...) not deprive the human animal from its ethico-normative distinctiveness. Implications of the discussion for an education aimed at cultivating human sensibilities are explored. (shrink)