Ética (Ethics) Baruch Spinoza, Athena Publisher, São paulo, 1957.


 Baruch Spinoza, Ethics

 Baruch Spinoza, also known as Benedictus Spinoza, was a Dutch philosopher, born in Amsterdam in 1632. Fleeing from the Lusitanian Inquisition, he was one of the first thinkers of the Enlightenment and a critic of the modern Bible.

 His books were placed on the index of banned books by the Catholic Church.


Ethics was published in the year of his death (February 21, 1677) the work was divided into 5 parts, namely:

-First part: GOD.

-Second part: Nature and the Origin of the mind.

-Third part: The origin and nature of affections.

-Fourth part: Human servitude and strength of affections.

 &

-Fifth part: The power of the intellect or human freedom.

 

The propositions bring in Ethics their thoughts better known as pantheistic, where God is not the absolute creator, but something greater than that, he makes up everything and is part of the universe, thus God and Nature are two names for the same reality. 

Demonstration - "If you deny this, you conceive, if this is possible, that God does not exist. His essence (Axiom VII), therefore, does not involve his existence. Now, this (Prop. VII) is absurd; God exists necessarily, therefore."  -Proposition XI.

Spinoza's philosophy is a bit like the Stoic philosophers' view, but differing in an important point: Spinoza rejected the claim that reason can dominate emotion, in his view it is quite the opposite, he defends that an emotion can only be overtaken by another, greater emotion. 

For Spinoza, the substance does not have a cause outside itself, it is the cause of itself (causa sui).  Therefore, there is nothing that limits the substance, which is then infinite.

 
Despite being called God, Spinoza's substance is radically different from the Judeo-Christian God, as it has no will or purpose since substance cannot be without existing. Consequently, Spinoza's God is not prayed for and still less would demand a new religion.

 

"Everything that exists, exists in God, and nothing without God can exist or be conceived."

-Spinoza, Ethics, proposition XV, page 27. 

I leave you this link with an interesting film about Spinoza, the apostle of reason: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVpEcMqDbUc

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