Spinoza and the Case for Philosophy
Cambridge University Press, 12/8/2014
EAN 9781107069985, ISBN10: 110706998X
Hardcover, 298 pages, 23.5 x 16 x 2 cm
Language: English
This book analyzes three often-debated questions of Spinoza's legacy: was Spinoza a religious thinker? How should we understand Spinoza's mind-body doctrine? What meaning can be given to Spinoza's notions - such as salvation, beatitude, and freedom - which are seemingly incompatible with his determinism, his secularism, and his critique of religion. Through a close reading of often-overlooked sections from Spinoza's Ethics, Elhanan Yakira argues that these seemingly conflicting elements are indeed compatible, despite Spinoza's iconoclastic meanings. Yakira argues that Ethics is an attempt at providing a purely philosophical - as opposed to theological - foundation for the theory of value and normativity.
Part I
1. Spinoza and the question of religion
Part II. Mind and Body
2. The exegetic inadequacy of parallelism
3. The context
4. Ethics II, propositions 1-13
Part III
5. Bodies and ideas - a few general remarks
Part IV
6. The norm of reason
adequacy, truth, knowledge, and comprehension
7. Man, a mode of the substance
Instead of a conclusion
Salus sive Beatitude sive Libertas.