Spinoza The Epicurean

Author : Dimitris Vardoulakis
Publisher : Edinburgh University Press
ISBN 13 : 1474476074
Total Pages : 368 pages
Book Rating : 4.72/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Spinoza, the Epicurean written by Dimitris Vardoulakis and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2020-05-28 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By radically re-reading the 'Theological Political Treatise', Dimitris Vardoulakis argues that Spinoza's Epicurean influence has profound implications for his conception of politics and ontology. This reconsideration of Spinoza's political project, set within a historical context, lays the ground for an alternative genealogy of materialism.

Author : Michael Della Rocca
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN 13 : 0197510949
Total Pages : 347 pages
Book Rating : 4.40/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Parmenidean Ascent written by Michael Della Rocca and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2020 with total page 347 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The central aim of The Parmenidean Ascent is to reveal the power of an extreme monism of a Parmenidean variety in a more uncompromising manner than has been attempted for many a year. For the Parmenidean monist, there are no distinctions whatsoever, and indeed distinctions are unintelligible. The book not only defends-against the tide of much recent scholarship-the attribution of such a sweeping monism to Parmenides, it also embraces this monism in its own right and expands these monistic results to many of the most crucial areas of philosophy. The topics that come in for this rationalistic, monistic, treatment include being, action, knowledge, meaning, truth, and metaphysical explanation. There is thus no differentiated being, no differentiated action, knowledge, etc. Rather all is being, just as all is action, knowledge, etc. The motive force behind this argument is a combination of a detailed survey of the failures of leading positions (both historical and contemporary) to meet a demand for the explanation of a given phenomenon, and a powerful rationalist, Bradleyan argument against the reality of relations. The result is a rationalist rejection of all distinctions and a skeptical denial of the intelligibility of ordinary, relational notions of being, action, knowledge, etc. A further significant upshot is the rejection of any distinction between philosophy itself and the study of its history. Throughout the book, attention is paid to philosophical methods systems, including especially the method, so popular today, of relying on intuitions and common sense. The historically-minded and rationalist approach throughout this book goes a long way toward demonstrating the ultimate bankruptcy of this prevalent methodology"--

Author : Catherine Wilson
Publisher : Basic Books
ISBN 13 : 1541672623
Total Pages : 304 pages
Book Rating : 4.28/5 ( download)

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Download or read book How to Be an Epicurean written by Catherine Wilson and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2019-09-24 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A leading philosopher shows that if the pursuit of happiness is the question, Epicureanism is the answer Epicureanism has a reputation problem, bringing to mind gluttons with gout or an admonition to eat, drink, and be merry. In How to Be an Epicurean, philosopher Catherine Wilson shows that Epicureanism isn't an excuse for having a good time: it's a means to live a good life. Although modern conveniences and scientific progress have significantly improved our quality of life, many of the problems faced by ancient Greeks -- love, money, family, politics -- remain with us in new forms. To overcome these obstacles, the Epicureans adopted a philosophy that promoted reason, respect for the natural world, and reverence for our fellow humans. By applying this ancient wisdom to a range of modern problems, from self-care routines and romantic entanglements to issues of public policy and social justice, Wilson shows us how we can all fill our lives with purpose and pleasure.

Author : Steven Nadler
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691233950
Total Pages : 248 pages
Book Rating : 4.56/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Think Least of Death written by Steven Nadler and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2022-05-10 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The seventeenth-century Dutch-Jewish philosopher Baruch Spinoza has long been known - and vilified - for his heretical view of God and for the radical determinism he sees governing the cosmos and human freedom. Only recently, however, has he begun to be considered seriously as a moral philosopher. In his philosophical masterpiece, the Ethics, after establishing some metaphysical and epistemological foundations, he turns to the "big questions" that so often move one to reflect on, and even change, the values that inform their life: What is truly good? What is happiness? What is the relationship between being a good or virtuous person and enjoying happiness and human flourishing? The guiding thread of the book, and the source of its title, is a claim that comes late in the Ethics: "The free person thinks least of all of death, and his wisdom is a meditation not on death but on life." The life of the free person, according to Spinoza, is one of joy, not sadness. He does what is "most important" in life and is not troubled by such harmful passions as hate, greed and envy. He treats others with benevolence, justice and charity. And, with his attention focused on the rewards of goodness, he enjoys the pleasures of this world, but in moderation. Nadler makes clear that these ethical precepts are not unrelated to Spinoza's metaphysical views. Rather, as Nadler shows, Spinoza's views on how to live are intimately connected to and require an understanding of his conception of human nature and its place in the cosmos, his account of values, and his conception of human happiness and flourishing. Written in an engaging style this book makes Spinoza's often forbiddingly technical philosophy accessible to contemporary readers interested in knowing more about Spinoza's views on morality, and who may even be looking to this famous "atheist", who so scandalized his early modern contemporaries, as a guide to the right way of living today"--

Author : Rebecca Goldstein
Publisher : Schocken
ISBN 13 : 030751417X
Total Pages : 306 pages
Book Rating : 4.72/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Betraying Spinoza written by Rebecca Goldstein and published by Schocken. This book was released on 2009-01-16 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Part of the Jewish Encounter series In 1656, Amsterdam’s Jewish community excommunicated Baruch Spinoza, and, at the age of twenty–three, he became the most famous heretic in Judaism. He was already germinating a secularist challenge to religion that would be as radical as it was original. He went on to produce one of the most ambitious systems in the history of Western philosophy, so ahead of its time that scientists today, from string theorists to neurobiologists, count themselves among Spinoza’s progeny. In Betraying Spinoza, Rebecca Goldstein sets out to rediscover the flesh-and-blood man often hidden beneath the veneer of rigorous rationality, and to crack the mystery of the breach between the philosopher and his Jewish past. Goldstein argues that the trauma of the Inquisition’ s persecution of its forced Jewish converts plays itself out in Spinoza’s philosophy. The excommunicated Spinoza, no less than his excommunicators, was responding to Europe’ s first experiment with racial anti-Semitism. Here is a Spinoza both hauntingly emblematic and deeply human, both heretic and hero—a surprisingly contemporary figure ripe for our own uncertain age. From the Hardcover edition.

Author : Catherine Wilson
Publisher : OUP Oxford
ISBN 13 : 0191553522
Total Pages : 318 pages
Book Rating : 4.23/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Epicureanism at the Origins of Modernity written by Catherine Wilson and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2008-06-19 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This landmark study examines the role played by the rediscovery of the writings of the ancient atomists, Epicurus and Lucretius, in the articulation of the major philosophical systems of the seventeenth century, and, more broadly, their influence on the evolution of natural science and moral and political philosophy. The target of sustained and trenchant philosophical criticism by Cicero, and of opprobrium by the Christian Fathers of the early Church, for its unflinching commitment to the absence of divine supervision and the finitude of life, the Epicurean philosophy surfaced again in the period of the Scientific Revolution, when it displaced scholastic Aristotelianism. Both modern social contract theory and utilitarianism in ethics were grounded in its tenets. Catherine Wilson shows how the distinctive Epicurean image of the natural and social worlds took hold in philosophy, and how it is an acknowledged, and often unacknowledged presence in the writings of Descartes, Gassendi, Hobbes, Boyle, Locke, Leibniz, Berkeley. With chapters devoted to Epicurean physics and cosmology, the corpuscularian or "mechanical" philosophy, the question of the mortality of the soul, the grounds of political authority, the contested nature of the experimental philosophy, sensuality, curiosity, and the role of pleasure and utility in ethics, the author makes a persuasive case for the significance of materialism in seventeenth-century philosophy without underestimating the depth and significance of the opposition to it, and for its continued importance in the contemporary world. Lucretius's great poem, On the Nature of Things, supplies the frame of reference for this deeply-researched inquiry into the origins of modern philosophy. .

Author : Catherine Wilson
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0199238812
Total Pages : 317 pages
Book Rating : 4.11/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Epicureanism at the Origins of Modernity written by Catherine Wilson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2008-06-19 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the role played by the rediscovery of the writings of the ancient atomists — the Greek philosopher Epicurus and his Latin successor, Titus Carus Lucretius — in the articulation of the major philosophical systems of the 17th century and the evolution of natural science, and moral and political philosophy. The book shows how the distinctive Epicurean image of the natural world as a product of time and chance — unsupervised by any god or gods — and of the social world as a sphere of human invention and moral equality, took hold in philosophy, and how Epicureanism is an acknowledged and often unacknowledged presence in the writings of Descartes, Gassendi, Hobbes, Boyle, Locke, Leibniz, and Berkeley. With chapters devoted to Epicurean physics and cosmology, the corpuscularian or ‘mechanical’ philosophy, the question of the mortality of the soul, the grounds of political authority, the contested nature of the experimental philosophy, sensuality, curiosity, and the role of pleasure and utility in ethics, the book makes a case for the significance of materialism in 17th-century philosophy, and for its continued importance in the contemporary world, without underestimating the depth and significance of the opposition to it in the Platonic and Stoic traditions. Lucretius's great poem, On the Nature of Things, supplies the frame of reference for this extended inquiry into the origins of modern philosophy.

Author : Catherine Wilson
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 019968832X
Total Pages : 161 pages
Book Rating : 4.26/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Epicureanism written by Catherine Wilson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2015 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This very short introudction corrects the prevalent view of Epicureanism that often conjures up ideas of tasty delights and hedonism. Wilson explains the philosophical and scientific ideas of Epicurus and his followers and the legacy of Epicureanism on later European thought.

Author : Steven B. Smith
Publisher : Yale University Press
ISBN 13 : 0300128495
Total Pages : 256 pages
Book Rating : 4.99/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Spinoza's Book of Life written by Steven B. Smith and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2003-01-01 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offering a new reading of Spinoza's masterpiece, Smith asserts that the 'Ethics' is a celebration of human freedom and its attendant joys and responsibilities and should be placed among the great founding documents of the Enlightenment.

Author : Milad Doueihi
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674050630
Total Pages : 131 pages
Book Rating : 4.31/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Augustine and Spinoza written by Milad Doueihi and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 131 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Election and grace are two key concepts that not only have shaped the relations between Judaism and Christianity, but also have formed a cornerstone of the Western philosophical discourse on the evolution and progress of humanity. Though Augustine and Spinoza can be shown to share a methodological approach to these concepts, their conclusions remain radically different. For the Church Father Augustine, grace defines human nature by the potential availability of divine intervention, thus setting the stage for the institutional and political legitimacy of the Church, the Christian state, and its justice. For Spinoza, on the other hand, election represents a unique but local form of divine intervention, marked by geography and historical context. Milad Doueihi maps out the consequences of such an encounter between these two thinkers in terms of their philosophical heritage and its continued relevance for contemporary discussions of religious diversity and autonomy. Augustine asserts a theological foundation for the political, whereas Spinoza radically separates philosophy, and thus authority, from theology in order to solicit a political democracy. In this sharply argued and deeply learned book, Milad Doueihi shows us how interconnections between the two thinkers have come to shape Western philosophy.