First of all, the ethics is meant as a practical book. This first volume contains spinozas single most important work, the ethics, and. The strength of spinozas social feelings, and his aristotelian emphasis on friendship as a necessary human good, are abundantly shown in the ethics. Avarice is the excessive desire and love of riches. Ethics, a philosophical book written by baruch spinoza. Spinoza lived an outwardly simple life as an optical lens grinder. Spinoza is concerned with ethics in the meaning ancient philosophy gives to it. Ethics and related writings hackett classics by baruch spinoza, michael l. It earned spinoza an enduring reputation as one of the most important and original thinkers of the seventeenth century. Ethics, part v the role of intuitive knowledge emerges in book v. Baruch spinoza was a seventeenthcentury dutch philosopher who tried to reinvent religion moving it away from something based on superstition and ideas of direct divine intervention to being a discipline that was far more impersonal, quasiscientific and yet also, at all times, serenely consoling. Spinozas ethics is one of the most difficult books in philosophy.
Ethics is a branch of philosophy that involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong conduct ethics may also refer to. Used items may not include supplementary materials such as cds or access codes. Presented with the assumed precision of a geometry textbook like that of euclid, its central idea is that god is the universe, the one substance in which all natural phenomena exist. The ethics, only published after spinozas death, is ingenious, not just for what it says, but for how it says it. Uncorrected paperswallace matson 4 excellent essays on spinoza start there. This type of passive mind that spinoza writes about in the earlier books of the ethics is a state of the mind in which adequate causes become passions. At this period in philosophical history, philosophers were extremely impressed both with geometry and the physics of newton and leibniz. Pdf ethics book by baruch spinoza free download 186 pages. The collected works of spinoza, volume i baruch spinoza. This will be the reading for saturday, september 21s meeting. Most readers of spinoza treat him as a pure metaphysician, a grim determinist, or a stoic moralist, but none of these descriptions captures the author of the ethics, argues steven b. Ethics, a book of ethical theory by tetsuro watsuji. Intemperance is the excessive desire and love of drinking. The ethics spinozas main work, is exposed as is a treatise on geometry.
Entertainingly written, more like a historical novel than a serious biography, with a short preface by einstein. The first edition of the novel was published in 1677, and was written by baruch spinoza. Everyday low prices and free delivery on eligible orders. During this time, spinoza supported himself as a lens grinder, and it was glass dust, along with consumption, that killed him in 1677. While the issues that spinoza addresses are perennial philosophical ones, and thus familiar to anyone who has done some elementary study in philosophy, the book may appear, on first approach, highly forbidding. Ethics spinozapart 5 wikisource, the free online library. And yet in his lifetime he was expelled from the jewish community in amsterdam as a heretic, and after his death his works were first banned by the christian authorities as atheistic, then hailed by humanists as the gospel of. Reading the ethics when you are reading the ethics, keeping in mind certain things makes the text easier to understand.
It earned its place as one of the most important and influential books in western philosophy by virtue of its uncompromisingly direct arguments about the nature of. The collected works of spinoza provides, for the first time in english, a truly satisfactory edition of all of spinozas writings, with accurate and readable translations, based on the best critical editions of the originallanguage texts, done by a scholar who has published extensively on the philosophers work. And for this reason, there is an exact correspondence between them. Elwes 1853 the ethics is a philosophical book written by baruch spinoza. In parts one and two of the ethics, spinoza argued for a world governed by cause and effect down to its tiniest details, and. Spinozas philosophy encompasses nearly every area of philosophical discourse, including metaphysics, epistemology, political philosophy, ethics, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of science. Baruch spinoza 16321677, is a dutch philosopher and has written the following works. I shall therefore treat therein of the power of the reason, showing how far the reason can control the emotions, and what is the nature of mental freedom or blessedness. Ethica, ordine geometrico demonstrata, usually known as the ethics, is a philosophical treatise written in latin by baruch spinoza. Ambitious also by spinoza because his method is to demonstrate the truth about god, about nature, man, religion and the good life. It gracefully positions spinoza within the ongoing. This sweet little book really helped me understand spinozas ethics. Spinoza, rejecting any divine transcendence, identifies and merges god and the nature. Although it was published posthumously in 1677, it is his most famous work, and is considered his magnum opus.
Free kindle book and epub digitized and proofread by project gutenberg. Steven smiths book is not only an approachable and engaging interpretation of one of the most difficult philosophical worksspinozas ethics but an exemplary manifestation of philosophical exegesis. Ways into reading spinoza philosophical bibliotherapy. At length i pass to the remaining portion of my ethics, which is concerned with the way leading to freedom. The ethics is also an extraordinarily difficult book. Although acknowledged as difficult, the book is widely taught in philosophy, literature, history, and politics. Tratado politico portuguese edition by baruch spinoza. Its also a pretty good condensed introduction to spinoza thats worth checking out.
Baruch spinoza 16321677 was born in amsterdam during a period of unprecedented scientific, artistic, and intellectual discovery. Indeed, so much scholarly attention has been lavished on spinozas metaphysics that it is easy to forget what the title of spinozas magnum opus so clearly announces. This is an exlibrary book and may have the usual libraryusedbook markings inside. Buy ethics penguin classics new ed by spinoza, benedict, hampshire, stuart, curley, edwin isbn. Baruch spinozas ethics is a dense masterpiece of sustained argumentative reasoning. Spinozas ethics opens with such a heady and original metaphysics that critics and scholars often get ensnared in the rich tangle of questions raised in parts i and ii. Ethics spinozapart 3 wikisource, the free online library. What spinoza calls the intellectual love of god is knowledge of the third kind. The seclusion of spinozas life was necessitated by intense labour and intellectual discipline, and his frugality expressed independence of spirit rather than meanness or selfconcern. In calling something cause of itself i mean that its essence involves existence, i.
The main characters of this philosophy, non fiction story are. Please note the image in this listing is a stock photo and may not match the covers of the actual item,550grams, isbn. Ambitious in its subject matter as critical spinoza all traditional philosophical conceptions of god, of man and the universe. Ethics, spinoza is pursuing the establishment of one unified book of nature and also of true religion a book of deus, sive natura, informed by the scienza nuova of galileo. Spinoza arrived at many of the conclusions of hindu vedanta on his own and writes them in a manner tat can be understood by the western reader who has not been exposed to the tenets of vedanta. Luxury is excessive desire, or even love of living sumptuously. His naturalist postulate of god as synonomous with the whole of the natural world was perhaps the most inspired and original reformulation of the concept of god. Four years later, spinoza began work on the first book of his masterpiece, the ethics, which was completed in 1675.
Samuel shirley, who translated spinozas complete works into english, summed up the. Published shortly after his death, the ethics is undoubtedly spinozas greatest work an elegant, fully cohesive cosmology derived from first principles, providing a coherent picture of reality, and a guide to the meaning of an. It was written between 1661 and 1675 and was first published posthumously in 1677 the book is perhaps the most ambitious attempt to apply the method of euclid in philosophy. Spinozas ethics urges the reader to live a life in accordance with the laws of reason, whose consummation is blessedness through the knowledge of god. The intellectual love of wisdom is the true god, who is the immanent reality. It is after all a book on ethics, on improving lives. Vedanta itself gives one answers to life and the universe in such a way that one does not need to search any further. The breadth and importance of spinoza s work was not fully realized until many years after his death.
Baruch spinoza was a seventeenthcentury dutch philosopher who tried to reinvent religion moving it away from something based on superstition and ideas of direct divine intervention to being a discipline that was far more impersonal, quasiscientific and. Popular spinoza books meet your next favorite book. It was written between 1664 and 1665 and was first published posthumously in 1677. I just remembered this little book from oxford university press. In his ethics, spinoza wanted to liberate readers from the dangers of ascribing human traits to god mon 21 feb 2011 03. The book was published in multiple languages including english, consists of 186 pages and is available in paperback format. It is notoriously obscure, as spinoza invents a variety of new terms and attempts to layout the book like a geometric proof. The two books the notion that divinity could be read in the natural world the metaphor of the book of nature was most famously publicized by galileo himself. By laying the groundwork for the 18thcentury enlightenment and modern biblical criticism, including modern conceptions of the self and, arguably, the universe, he came to be considered one of the great rationalists of 17thcentury philosophy. Offering a new reading of spinozas masterpiece, smith asserts that the ethics is a celebration of human freedom and its attendant joys and responsibilities and should be placed. His thought combines a commitment to a number of cartesian metaphysical and epistemological principles with elements from ancient stoicism, hobbes. Spinozas ethics by beth lord 9780253222046 paperback.