This article concerns the notion of living bodies that Spinoza develops in the Ethics (published posthumously in 1677). While commentators have emphasized the relevance of Spinoza’s works for contemporary physiology, they have neglected to study Spinoza’s own views on this topic. My aim is to draw attention to the specific parti pris that underlies Spinoza’s passages on anatomy. To do so, I first compare Spinoza’s claims on human body with the conceptions developed in his immediate historical environment. Then, I propose (...) to draw a parallel between Lakatos’s notion of “negative heuristics” and the high level of generalization Spinoza demonstrates in his propositions on the human body. This parallel allows me to show how Spinoza’s critical remarks on our knowledge of human body have heuristic value. (shrink)

Para determinar la relación entre saber y poder en el Tratado político de Spinoza, debe observarse que a medida que la potestas del imperio se comparte, es decir, a medida que las instancias de discusión racional aumentan , la instancia de un saber independiente de la posesión del poder va desapareciendo. Mientras que la instancia del saber racional es indispensable reconocerla en la monarquía, como opuesta a la potestas de uno solo , parece que se diluye y comparte a medida (...) que la potestas vuelve a la multitud, pasando por el gobierno aristocrático. La inconclusión del TP no puede mostrarnos la lógica de esta disolución de la autoridad de la razón en el régimen democrático, la potestas absoluta. (shrink)

Cartesianism appeared inexorably to produce disparate theoretical tendencies inside itself, and Spinoza’s philosophy was one of the most outrageous and strangest result of those tendencies. This explains why so many Cartesians felt the urge to deal with the thought of the Dutch philosopher, from time to time labelled as ‘monism’, ‘pantheism’, or ‘atheism’. The case of Fénelon, the Quietist theologian, tutor of the Princes of France and brilliant Cartesian philosopher, highlights the difficulties of such an operation. The Archbishop of Cambrai (...) devotes not only various letters to the criticism of Spinoza, but even a whole section of the Démonstration de l’existence de Dieu – his most ambitious work, from a theoretical point of view. For apparently no reason, the Réfutation du spinozisme was inserted in the middle of the second part of the Démonstration, the more specifically philosophical section. This paper aims to show how Fénelon actually wanted to criticize Descartes’ radical tendencies by attacking them where they were to be found inside Spinoza, without directly compromising Cartesianism – or, first and foremost, his own ‘apologetic’ Cartesianism. (shrink)

El artículo indaga en dos tradiciones filosóficas, la primera enfatiza la importancia de la voluntad y la segunda prefiere el entendimiento. Estas opciones antropológicas son decisivas para explicar otras cuestiones, y tiene también muchas consecuencias prácticas. Después de una exposición genealógica, estudiamos los casos de Leibniz y Spinoza porque unifican ambas dimensiones pero de manera distinta.