Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.... And one fine morning—So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past. in the appendix to the first part of the Ethics, Spinoza famously claims that “all final causes are nothing but human fictions”. From the very beginning of its reception until the (...) present day, supporters of Spinoza’s philosophy commonly praised this attack on final causes. In fact, Spinoza emphatically introduces the Appendix by making clear that a correct... (shrink)

Wolfson's systematic presentation of the philosophy of Spinoza has long been a classic. It is with pride that we make it available again in a one-volume edition.

This book is the fruit of twenty-five years of study of Spinoza by the editor and translator of a new and widely acclaimed edition of Spinoza's collected works.

According to a widely accepted reading of the "Ethics," Spinoza subscribes to a desire-satisfaction theory of value. A desire-satisfaction theory says that what has value is the satisfaction of one’s desires and whatever leads to the satisfaction of one’s desires. In this paper I argue that this standard reading is incorrect, and I show that in Spinoza’s view the foundation of what is truly valuable is the perfection of a person’s essence, not the satisfaction of a person’s desires.

Monte Johnson examines one of the most controversial aspects of Aristiotle's natural philosophy: his teleology. Is teleology about causation or explanation? Does it exclude or obviate mechanism, determinism, or materialism? Is it focused on the good of individual organisms, or is god or man the ultimate end of all processes and entities? Is teleology restricted to living things, or does it apply to the cosmos as a whole? Does it identify objectively existent causes in the world, or is it merely (...) a heuristic for our understanding of other causal processes? Johnson argues that Aristotle's aporetic approach drives a middle course between these traditional oppositions, and avoids the dilemma, frequently urged against teleology, between backwards causation and anthropomorphism. Although these issues have been debated with extraordinary depth by Aristotle scholars, and touched upon by many in the wider philosophical and scientific community as well, there has been no comprehensive historical treatment of the issue. Aristotle is commonly considered the inventor of teleology, although the precise term originated in the eighteenth century. But if teleology means the use of ends and goals in natural science, then Aristotle was rather a critical innovator of teleological explanation. Teleological notions were widespread among his predecessors, but Aristotle rejected their conception of extrinsic causes such as mind or god as the primary causes for natural things. Aristotle's radical alternative was to assert nature itself as an internal principle of change and an end, and his teleological explanations focus on the intrinsic ends of natural substances - those ends that benefit the natural thing itself. Aristotle's use of ends was subsequently conflated with incompatible 'teleological' notions, including proofs for the existence of a providential or designer god, vitalism and animism, opposition to mechanism and non-teleological causation, and anthropocentrism. Johnson addresses these misconceptions through an elaboration of Aristotle's methodological statements, as well as an examination of the explanations actually offered in the scientific works. Reviewed in: Notre Dame Philosophical Review 2006.06.15; Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2006.08.37; Il-Sole – 24 Ore 6 Aug. 2006; Philosophy in Review 26 (2006): 360-2; Rhizai 3 (2006): 171-8; Journal of the History of Philosophy 45 (2007): 323-4; Ancient Philosophy 27 (2007): 191-200; Phronesis 52 (2007): 248-9; Isis 98 (2007): 375; Aestimatio 4 (2007) 146-152; The British Journal for the History of Science 41 (2008): 129-130. The European Legacy 14 (2009); La Cultura 47 (2009): 174-175; Sean M. Row, Teleology in Political Contexts: an assessment of Monte Ransome Johnson’s “Aristotle on Teleology”. (A thesis presented to the faculty of the college of arts and sciences of Ohio University, 2009.). (shrink)

Volumes I and II provided a completely new translation of the philosophical works of Descartes, based on the best available Latin and French texts. Volume III contains 207 of Descartes' letters, over half of which have previously not been translated into English. It incorporates, in its entirety, Anthony Kenny's celebrated translation of selected philosophical letters, first published in 1970. In conjunction with Volumes I and II it is designed to meet the widespread demand for a comprehensive, authoritative and accurate edition (...) of Descartes' philosophical writings in clear and readable modern English. (shrink)

Spinoza presents his ethics using a variety of terminologies. Propositions that are, or at least might be taken for, normative include only very few explicit guidelines for action. I will take this claim from Vp10s to be one such guideline:Vp10s: So that we may always have this rule of reason ready when it is needed, we should think and meditate often about common human wrongs and how and in what way they may best be driven away by nobility.

Benedict de Spinoza is one of the most controversial and enigmatic thinkers in the history of philosophy. His greatest work, Ethics (1677), developed a comprehensive philosophical system and argued that God and Nature are identical. His scandalous Theological-Political Treatise (1670) provoked outrage during his lifetime due to its biblical criticism, anticlericalism, and defense of the freedom to philosophize. Together, these works earned Spinoza a reputation as a singularly radical thinker. -/- In this book, Steinberg and Viljanen offer a concise and (...) up-to-date account of Spinoza’s thought and its philosophical legacy. They explore the full range of Spinoza’s ideas, from politics and theology to ontology and epistemology. Drawing broadly on Spinoza’s impressive oeuvre, they have crafted a lucid introduction for readers unfamiliar with this important philosopher, as well as a nuanced and enlightening study for more experienced readers. (shrink)

Among Spinoza’s principal projects in the Ethics is his effort to “remove” certain metaethical prejudices from the minds of his readers, to “expose” them, as he has similar misconceptions about other matters, by submitting them to the “scrutiny of reason”. In this article, I consider the argumentative strategy Spinoza uses here – and its intellectual history – in depth. I argue that Spinoza’s method is best characterised as a genealogical analysis. As I recount, by Spinoza’s time of writing, these kinds (...) of arguments already had a long and illustrious history. However, I also argue that, in his adoption of such strategies, we have good reason to think Spinoza’s primary influence was Gersonides. Elucidating this aspect of Spinoza’s critique of his contemporaries’ axiologies brings a number of explicatory and historical boons. However, regrettably, it also comes at a cost, revealing a significant flaw in Spinoza’s reasoning. Towards the end of this article, I consider the nature of this flaw, whether Spinoza can avoid it and its ramifications for Spinoza’s wider philosophical project. (shrink)

This essay argues that Spinoza sees good and evil as relative in at least three ways. It distinguishes between speaker-relativity, correlativity, and model-relativity. It considers the conceptual and interpretative problems arising in two arguments of the Ethics: one argument attempts to show that rationality is a maximizing principle, that is, that a rational individual will choose the best option available, even among distasteful or bad ones; the other attempts to show that anyone who always had adequate ideas would be incapable (...) of conceiving of goodness. It is shown that both arguments appear to have a confusion of one type of relativity with another. (shrink)

Alexander X. Douglas situates Spinoza's philosophy in its immediate historical context, and argues that much of his work was conceived with the aim of rebutting the claims of his contemporaries. In contrast to them, Spinoza argued that philosophy reveals the true nature of God, and reinterpreted the concept of God in profound and radical ways.

While Spinoza claims that our good is both what increases our essential power and what helps us to satisfy our desires, he admits that people desire things that do not increase their power. This paper addresses this problem by arguing that Spinoza conceives of desires as expressions of our conatus , so that satisfying our desires necessarily increases our power and vice versa. This reading holds, in opposition to recent work, that Spinoza upholds a desire-satisfaction theory of the good, though (...) an unusual one, since our good is only determined by desires arising from our conatus , in other words, active desires. (shrink)

v. 1. Editorial introduction -- v. 2. The English and Latin texts (i) -- v. 3. The English and Latin texts (ii).

In exploring this tradition of philosophical reflection on the nature of goodness, the twelve essays in this book (all but two published here for the first time) present some of the best recent historical scholarship in...

Intuitively, a property is intrinsic just in case a thing’s having it (at a time) depends only on what that thing is like (at that time), and not on what any wholly distinct contingent object (or wholly distinct time) is like. A property is extrinsic just in case it is non-intrinsic. Redness and squareness are intrinsic properties. Being next to a red object is extrinsic.

A perennial problem in interpreting Hobbes’s moral and political thought in Leviathan has been to square the apparently irreducible normativity of central Hobbesian concepts and premises with his materialism and empiricism. Thus, Hobbes defines a “law of nature” as a “precept or general rule, found out by reason, by which a man is forbidden to do that which is destructive of his life” and the “right of nature” as “the liberty each man hath to use his own power, as he (...) will himself, for the preservation of his own nature”. Both are plainly normative. A law of nature is a precept that tells us what we ought not, or must not, do. And the right of nature tells us what we may do. (shrink)

The key term of Aristotle’s teleology is “the cause for the sake of which”. Aristotle discusses in several key texts the fact that this has two different senses: aim and beneficiary. The aim of a knife is cutting, but the beneficiary is the person who does, or orders, the cutting. Aristotle uses this distinction to show how natural things have both aims and are beneficiaries of their functions. He also shows how non-natural things, such as god, can operate as causes (...) for the sake of which, but not as beneficiaries. Eternal things cannot be beneficiaries, because they cannot undergo change. Thus, the beneficiaries of Aristotle’s teleology are the elements, plants, and animals that can both undergo change and have functional aims. A survey of other terms of Aristotle’s teleology, such as “nature does nothing in vain”, the terms “complete” or “perfect”, as well as “end” and “entelechy” further show the specific orientation of Aristotle’s teleology, as do his use of axiological terms such as “better” and “fine”. (shrink)

A puzzling feature of Spinoza's discussion of the good is that it takes place on two different levels whose compatibility seems uncertain. He advances a view of the nature of ascriptions of “good” to certain individual things, but he also devotes a large part of the Ethics to recommending a particular conception of the good person. The first theory appears to undermine the force of the second. For Spinoza's view of ascriptions of “good” to any objects apparently leads in the (...) direction of subjectivism; what is good from one person's viewpoint may be bad for another's, and no viewpoint is privileged. Yet a subjectivist view of ascriptions of good would mix poorly with Spinoza's own presentation of a standard for human conduct; he himself voices a view of human good which he takes to be more than just another sound in the chorus of ethical opinions. Professor E.M. Curley expresses concern with such a difficulty in his recent article “Spinoza's Moral Philosophy: “The greater portion of Spinoza's ethical theory is devoted not to metaethics, but to normative athics. not to the analysis of ethical judgments, but to the making of ethical judgments. (shrink)

This paper offers a non-traditional account of what was really at stake in debates over the legitimacy of teleology and teleological explanations in the later medieval and early modern periods. It is divided into four main sections. The first section highlights two defining features of ancient and early medieval views on teleology, namely, that teleological explanations are on a par (or better) with efficient causal explanations, and that the objective goodness of outcomes may explain their coming about. The second section (...) argues that it was the first thesis – the thesis of explanatory parity –that came under attack by mainstream philosophers in the later medieval and early modern traditions, rather than teleology per se. The third section argues similarly that it was the second thesis – the thesis of explanatory goodness – that was the object of Spinoza’s critique of final causes, rather than teleology itself. Finally, the fourth section argues that Leibniz’s claim to be a champion of traditional teleology rests on his willingness to defend both the theses of explanatory parity and goodness against the very charges that led to their demise. The essay concludes by contrasting the narrative offered here with Don Garrett’s recent account according to which “it is not Leibniz but Spinoza who holds the position on teleology and teleological explanation nearest to that of Aristotle” (312). (shrink)

Baruch Spinoza was born in Amsterdam during a period of unprecedented scientific, artistic, and intellectual discovery. Upon its release, Spinoza’s Ethics was banned; today it is the quintessential example of philosophical method. Although acknowledged as difficult, the book is widely taught in philosophy, literature, history, and politics. This introduction is designed to be read side by side with Spinoza's work. As a guide to the style, vocabulary, and arguments of the Ethics, it offers a range of interpretive possibilities to prepare (...) students to become conversant with Spinoza's philosophical method and his challenge to conventional thinking. (shrink)

By reconstructing the teleological conceptions of Thomas Aquinas, Suarez, Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz, the author argues against the common view that mechanical philosophers in the Early Modern Period rejected natural teleology because of its association with an Aristotelian picture of the world. First, many thinkers in the Early Modern Period did not reject teleological explanations for natural phenomena. Second, many scholastic thinkers already believed that pure natural teleology was problematic because they held that authentic teleological explanations are only possible when (...) goals can be recognized.". (shrink)

Both an ideal entrée for beginning readers and a solid text for scholars, the second edition of Peter Kalkavage's acclaimed translation of Plato's _Timaeus_ brings enhanced accessibility to a rendering well known for its faithfulness to the original text. An extensive essay offers insights into the reading of the work, the nature of Platonic dialogue, and the cultural background of the _Timaeus_. Appendices on music, astronomy, and geometry provide additional guidance. A brief outline of the themes of the work, a (...) detailed glossary, and a selected bibliography are also included. (shrink)

460 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 34:3 JULY 1996 Graeme Hunter, editor. Spinoza: The Enduring Questions. Toronto: University of To- ronto Press, 1994. Pp. xi + 182. Cloth, $70.00. This volume of eight essays is dedicated to the memory of the late David Savan, and originated from a conference held in his honor prior to his untimely death. The lead essay is by Savan himself, and most of the other essays acknowledge the influence of his work. The first three (...) essays address not only an "enduring question," but a question about enduring: namely, the nature of eternality and immortality in Spinoza's metaphysics. In a dense and detailed essay that amply rewards close analysis, Savan aims to clarify Spinoza's conception of eternity. That conception, Savan argues, cannot be identified with any of the three main conceptions dominant in previous philosophizing: eternity as sempiternity; eternity as Platonic timelessness; and eternity as neces- sary existence, following from a thing's own essence. Chief among his.. (shrink)

A puzzling feature of Spinoza's discussion of the good is that it takes place on two different levels whose compatibility seems uncertain. He advances a view of the nature of ascriptions of “good” to certain individual things, but he also devotes a large part of the Ethics to recommending a particular conception of the good person. The first theory appears to undermine the force of the second. For Spinoza's view of ascriptions of “good” to any objects apparently leads in the (...) direction of subjectivism; what is good from one person's viewpoint may be bad for another's, and no viewpoint is privileged. Yet a subjectivist view of ascriptions of good would mix poorly with Spinoza's own presentation of a standard for human conduct; he himself voices a view of human good which he takes to be more than just another sound in the chorus of ethical opinions. Professor E.M. Curley expresses concern with such a difficulty in his recent article “Spinoza's Moral Philosophy: “The greater portion of Spinoza's ethical theory is devoted not to metaethics, but to normative athics. not to the analysis of ethical judgments, but to the making of ethical judgments. (shrink)

Human actions can be identified by species, such as murder, theft, or almsgiving. But how does one determine to which kind an action belongs? Joseph Pilsner explores Thomas Aquinas's answer to this philosophical question.