People who talk about Spinoza usually overlook that the temple that excommunicated him didn't know the process, and Spinoza had to teach them how to do an excommunication. Quite ironic.
I had to read Spinoza over 30 years ago. I recall he actually did not support "pantheism", but "panentheism" -- The latter referring to the idea that the entire universe is made up of an elementary "god-stuff", but there is more god-stuff outside this universe. And that extra stuff is capable of thinking and observing the universe. [By analogy, this "improved pantheism" is kind of like saying that God took his leg and turned it into the universe.]... If I recall correctly, in his theories of Philosophical Aesthetics Spinoza also said, "Beauty is food for the soul", so he still had his duality... Spinoza also said that when we learn to interpret art, we gain an understanding of the art and the artist's intentions and beliefs. And so when we look at the universe (that is made of god-stuff), we gain the insight of the "universe artist" that is God. Some of these insights may be the interpretation of my professor... Also, the "Free Will"/"Determinism" debate insists that these positions are opposite and incompatible. (The determinists say that free will is a self-delusion, and we don't make decisions, any more than grass bends to wind.) The way Spinoza's Determinism is presented here is simply the insistence that the universe is consistent, like a giant machine put in motion, and cause and effect continue to operate over time.
Not quite... He didn't postulate "extra stuff" outside the universe (whatever that might mean), but a single substance that can be viewed in different ways. This is Spinoza's theory of attributes. And he said that this substance (of which everything is composed) has infinite attributes. But we (humans) are only aware of two of them: thought and extension (i.e. how compositions of this substance occupy space). It is a matter of controversy what some of these other attributes might be, but an analogy might be: looking at things from many different angles.
I love all the banter here - even the uncomplimentary bits! Look for a follow-up video that addresses some of these comments soon. I'll be leaving the Spinoza dating advice alone, however. You guys seem to have that one covered!
I don't know if we can call him the most hated as he wasn't forced to drink hemlock. That said, what I have seen of his work I have found pretty plausible. I have heard some suggest that Substance (god or nature) is energy, which could be.
I’ve watched several other professors tutorials on Spinoza. Yours so far is the best. Now, please don’t take offense; you see, I am a 79 year old retired photographer. Can’t help but see through an artist/photographer’s eyes. I’ve noticed in a lot of these tutorial videos the speaker is at their desk looking down at, I assume, their computer/ laptop. This results in the viewer seeing you from a lower angle. All camera lenses have some distortion, thus the chin and nose are more pronounced. If you could place the laptop/computer on a box/stack of books so your camera lens sees you from an angle just a small bite above your eyes this old photog would be very happy. BTW, the angle I’m describing is a traditional portrait angle. Something called Rembrandt lighting would even more improve the your attractiveness.
At 86 my answer to the great mind and philosophy of Spinoza is contained in a little poem that I composed some fifty years ago. It goes like this : ETERNITY. I was the sky and I was the sea. I was the wind and I was the tree. This is how I know that I was, that I am and that when I die, through the quantic atoms of my body I will be born in thousand of different bodies, on earth and in the universe. *** Religions and sacred books are all creation of man. Nobody ever saw or herd God. To explain God is foolish and childish. Reality for us and everything is to be born, to live and die. To be reborn in different forms, sometimes even human.
I went to Columbia in 1960 and there was a large cohort of Jewish students. They, like me, were born in 1942 so all these young men were strongly affected by the Holocaust and most had grown up in intensely intellectual families. I had too, but in my family the main topic of conversation was the economist John Maynard Keynes. As we worked our way through the great thinkers from Plato on there were two who stood out for my Jewish classmates: Spinoza and Marx. After attending lectures on those two I noticed a group of student about 25 strong with everyone talking at once and creating buzz of intense conversation. I remember thinking that I knew who their families talked about over dinner in their homes. I’ve been fond of Spinoza ever since knowing he still caused such intense interest. Marx not so much.
That's a great intro to Spinoza. Spinoza shows that personal happiness cannot occur without boundaries. Just as freedom cannot be realized without responsibilities. In many ways hes a practical philosopher, similar to stoicism. He's also the anti relativist / existentialist which are academic philosophies and not meant to be applied to real life.
Spinoza’s universe is most logical, reasonable and closest to what we actually observe or experience. How else could it be? It’s natural, it’s real, it lives.
I think Spinoza’s might be the most impeccable analysis of the mind-body relation. But it does leave puzzles for us to figure out based on deeper knowledge of the brain-which he says is necessary in the Ethics.
Interesting info, thanks. I find myself essentially in agreement with Spinoza though some things are hard to know. My view is there is a deterministic component to existence ('natural law') and a random component ('free-will'). I think natural law is there for our own benefit, as this all pervading God/nature thing is us. There is likely a specific purpose and destination to our evolution, so in a sense this is like the dominoes falling towards this destination. But there is a lot of room for variety of experience and randomness, because part of the purpose of existence is this God/Nature aspect experiencing itself, and learning through us. I don't think everything is pre-determined, which aligns with what you are saying. If you stop checking your emails at 7pm, and end up sleeping better as a result, this will likely effect a multitude of other events and people in your life, and will not just be isolated to your subjective experience.
Thank you for your thoughtful comment! Part of my understanding of Spinoza's philosophy is that choices big and small have a ripple effect. When we take time to understand the ripples that precede the choices we make in the here and now, we can do so more rationally and gain better outcomes. I also appreciate your blend of deterministic and free-will elements in understanding existence.
@time8871 - Why do you think "There is likely a specific purpose and destination to our evolution?" Are you addressing biological evolution, or using it colloquially about emotions and choices?
@@douglasdavis8395 Just my own observations, answering this question goes beyond the scope of a youtube comment. You are free to live your life and come to your own conclusions. It seems that this life was created in a way that more than one interpretation can be come to in regards to this kind of question, I think intentionally. We have the free-will to come to our own conclusions, and live our lives and make choices accordingly. If things were too obvious it would restrict free-will. I can't teach you my inner experiences. Life is the teacher.
the jewish community of the time were refugees in holland. they excommunicated spinoza so as not to antagonize the dutch protestant authorities, wh/ could have led to problems for continued tolerance. good presentation, thanks.
Not true.This suggests that he was excommunicated to prevent the Jewish community to be kicked out of the country.The jewish community cursed him with all the thinkable curses in the book.
"When community leaders discuss community interests behind closed doors, you can be sure they are not discussing what is in the community's interest" (Spinoza). No wonder they hated him!
Yeah. He's underrated. Also easy to understand and follow. God and Nature are One, duh. But in his day, this was heresy. He was right then, and right now.
When Europe caught up with Native Americans. Soon they'd also be using other new words: freedom and democracy. (See David Graeber's "The Dawn of Everything.")
because that is My scope and I write these weird demented texts people don't like... god Is everything modal process that can be ontologized in the mind... I don't like it he calls them monads with nomads and same thing revealing an unclearing through being
@@Impaled_Onion-thatsmine - I'm a Christian. But guess what? Those words "modal process that can be ontologized in the mind" are words which communicate virtually nothing whatsoever to sane individuals. BE PLAIN. If anyone has communicated PLAINLY, then it was surely Christ himself.
His consistency with contemporary physics is not obvious given the essentially indeterministic component of local quantum physics. However, I think this local indeterminacy is consistent with a global/eternal necessity. So I think you’re right that Spinoza is right, and Einstein (who professed “Spinoza’s God”) was right when he said “God does not play dice.”
But how can deliberating over what food causes sluggishness and then making a conscious choice of avoiding healthier food be a result of deterministic worldview. In fact, if the deterministic worldview is absolutely correct, there should be no possibility of course correction. One act should logically lead to another act of the same species, like the way it happens with animals, who will act in the same way, until a substantial change is introduced in the environment, which will force the animal either to adapt or perish. But in the case of humans we say that he can choose otherwise, and even exert an influence over his environment.
It is worth noting that Spinoza's pantheism also resembles a fundamental tenet of 1st c. BCE Advaita Vedanta Hinduism. The vulgar idea that Hindus worship a bewildering variety of gods ignores the fact that all those deities are understood to be themselves merely contingent and temporal manifestations of ultimate reality: the Omnipresent Omniscience they call Brahman. As Katha Upanishad insists: "Brahman alone is - nothing else is." Kaivalya Upanishad affirms: "By seeing the Self in all beings, and all beings in the Self, one goes to Brahman. That is the only way." The Bhagavad-Gita claims Sri Krsna Himself observed: "True knowledge is to see one changeless life in all the lives and in the Separate, One Inseparable." All that said, E=mc² elegantly expresses the idea that all observable material reality in the universe is nothing but energy constrained by natural law.
@@DrElanK It encourages me that a syncretic and inspiring global human culture can indeed be built; and is perhaps a necessary precondition for ensuring our descendants' descendants' descendants' longest possible survival by populating the stars.
His ideas are a continuation of Greek philosophy, it all comes from mystical experience. The Greek Philosophers were mystics obviously the Hindu writers were as well. Spinoza is in my opinion trying to rational explain mystical experience. In the comment section of videos about him you will see Hindus claiming this is the Vedas, Buddhists say it is Buddhism, Jews say it is Kabbalah and Spinoza said this is the philosophy of Jesus and Paul.
@@kpllc4209 Agreed. Whenever people anywhere start to think about "God," they must of necessity rely on imaginary constructs in one form or another. Different flavors of doctrine in all the traditions result from differing reliance on dreams, trance states, hallucinations, or pure fantasies - and attempts to rationalize imaginary constructs more or less rigorously. The seemingly endless gradual struggle to master ancient myths and dogmas with intellectual integrity and scientific rigor continues at its own maddeningly deliberate and occasionally drunken snail's pace.
Enjoyed the content. You made me want to read Spinoza for myself. However, if your goal is to build subscribers, you should consider some changes to your video setup. The camera angle has you looking “down your nose” at viewers, which translates as a sense of superiority, as if you are lecturing us rather than having a conversation. Similarly, your somewhat clipped speaking style comes across as a bit haughty, when your goal should be more intimate and welcoming. Please forgive me if I come across as nitpicking and overly critical. My intention is to give helpful feedback. Good luck with your channel!
@@Stevie-J Not a confirmation bias, I simply was not that familiar with this guy. People with similar beliefs tend to flock together, that's why we have political parties.
Thanks for your comment! The idea that free will is an illusion might sound strange at first. Within Spinoza's philosophy, we make choices, but there's a huge chain of events and circumstances that lead up to making those choices - habits, emotions, external influences. Spinoza's philosophy suggests we can make better choices when we make an effort to understand how we got there. If we know why we do what we do, we can use reason to guide us toward better outcomes. What's illusory is thinking our will - or choices - doesn't come with proverbial baggage.
Just were Jung and know quantum physics are now seeing the world. All is interconnected, matter itself may be conscious and is gets more complex self-awareness develops. Of course we only re-align because it is predetermined by the dominoes preceding us. We only change are direction because it predetermined so the encouragement we get must also be predetermined. Of course one answer to free-will is there are number of multiverses, all with different versions of ourselves, but all predetermined, so no free will. Each universe is self contained set, but the sum total of all the sets (universes) makes a set called total universe. This total set, however, allows for free-will due to the totality of all sets allowing you to have made different choices in each universe, even if they were predetermined in each set. A bit like a Russel Paradox..
Like usually, the parts of the philosophers work that are seen as contradictory to other philosophers, or, that deny the existence of things, like free will, come about only because the philosopher defines them differently than other philosophers do. His approach, while insightful from a certain perspective, fails to incorporate the other perspectives into a whole, and creates therefore the illusion of an incompatibility. This makes it difficult to compare it with the work of others, because the differently defined words serve a different function there, than in his own. Which creates the impression of a necessary competition between the philosophies, instead of encouraging to unite the parts that do work with one another. I guess it can't be helped...
Spinoza is not physicalist, he just say the physical world is all we have. Who says Spinoza is one the most hated philosopher? I think its the quite opposite, maybe his community hated him while lived, but after that? He became big and loved thinker. Einstein was one of his admirer, also for example in Nietzsche and Heidegger there is lots of Spinoza in it.
God is above nature. God created. Nature is part of that creation. God and nature are not the same. God has always been and is unchangeable. Nature is material and God is spirit.
God is the source of everything. Mystics, christian and otherwise, including Jesus knew and taught of that union. I and the father are one is a acknowledgement of that union with all that is. Religion misses that part of what he taught for control.
Yes, you 'can' use knowledge to alter course, but that knowledge is 100% out of your control. You did not choose your genetics, your parents, your childhood environment, etc. In this sense, free will is the biggest illusion of them all. You have only the freedom to choose given the context of a myriad of things you have zero control of choice over.
Doesn’t ethics require free will? Otherwise ethics devolves into nothing more than a deterministic description of how nothing couldn’t be otherwise. Ethics are completely incompatible with determinism.
@@kpllc4209 Ethics becomes practically meaningless without personal agency, and Spinoza certainly doesn’t deny personal agency. Spinoza’s definition of free will is not the capacity to choose independently of determinism, but to use one’s reason to act according to one’s free nature and not according to external causes or passions. To do so is to live the ethical life of blessedness.
You say that he was the most hated, in his time. What was the hatred based on? Was it just fear of the new, or was there something more to it? Looking back on it from modern times it doesn’t seem like something that would arouse such emotions.
Some saw the idea of God and Nature as a type of atheism. For the Jewish community, God and Nature as a substance implies a lack of awareness. That would mean that the substance of God and Nature cannot make choices, including designating the Jewish people as the "chosen ones."
@@DrElanK ok, that helps. Was the reaction really so venomous? I’m not doubting you. I’m guessing that since religion was central to pretty much everyone’s life, more so than today, this accounts for it?
@@davidhull1481 There are stories of Spinoza being stabbed outside the synagogue, although the location and seriousness seem to vary in versions . . . I'm working on a follow-up video that looks at Spinoza's influence, but I have exploring why he gained the moniker of "the most hated philosopher" on my agenda (I'm not the first to call him that).
Doesn't the idea that you can have a good life by doing what he says contradict the idea we have no free will to do it? So, he doesn't believe the no free will thing. Spinoza can drive you crazy.
Determinism, held until he died by Einstein, is nonetheless wrong. Quantum Physics 'building blocks' are chance events, and cannot therefore be predicted. Secondly, if we knew everything, then all art and science would come to an end, for scientific discovery is driven by the imagination (if we could foretell the future, then we would know what it is before its appearance for us). Finally, and as Laplace knew, two (or more) lines of causality cross and help create something new and unexpected. Example: Evolution.
How do you square Spinoza's determinism with his claim that 'understanding determinism can lead us to act more rationally' - which sounds like free will to me. Unless the 'acting rationally' is itself deterministic too. Then he is merely making an observation - we will act more rationally when we come into contact with this information regarding determinism via soundwaves and our eardrums. Still it does sound free will-ish when he says we can act more rationally, in the sense of 'choosing' to act more rationally.
This is the weak point in any argument claiming that the universe is fully deterministic. However I'd like to offer a different possibility: It is clear that each event has a cause and a consequence, cause and consequence forming a chain throughout time. The common view of determinism is that each cause leads to one and only one consequence. What if this is not so? What if causes can lead to a variety of consequences? This is still a cause-and-effect universe, but exactly what is it that chooses the precise consequence? Maybe this is the extent of free will. I truly have no idea, but I question the fully deterministic model.
Exactly. Spinoza actually supports free will and doesn’t believe everything is purely determined. His whole ethics is based upon actually choosing to live differently by coming to higher levels of knowledge. Otherwise the Ethics becomes just a description about how nothing could be other than it is - and his text is anything but this.
@@Aaron-xb4rq In Spinoza's view you choosing to live differently is based on an almost infinite chain of causes that you have no control over. He explicitly says Nothing could other than it is.
@@kpllc4209 This isn’t exactly true. While Spinoza does say that everything is determined, he also makes it very clear that man is free by nature. The whole point of the last three books of “Ethics” is to show that man has the personal agency to use his reason and understanding to act in accordance with nature and not according to external causes or passions. To live as such is to be free and to live the difficult and rare life of blessedness. This notion of free will is based on the freedom of one's nature while also affirming determinism. One can only act according to their level of understanding. When man's level of understanding changes, how he responds to life can change. Hence, we could say that reality is determined but not predetermined. Freedom makes this so.
@@Aaron-xb4rq In Spinoza's words " to understand is to be free" but not like you are now an autonomous being that is no longer subject to the natural order. You are never truly free or as Spinoza says a "kingdom within a kingdom". A person's level of understanding would be determined by their biology, geography, family, education, resources etc. there is no room in Spinoza's system for what is called classical free will.
I cannot unthink the thought if he was born in our time... Could he have ended up with the singularity that Nature is everything and leave out a deity component embedded in his theories. I don't see why the deity component is necessary. But hey as you understand I don't believe in deities as I see it as projections of human mind and not the opposite. The point is that most of his ideas work equally well without the concept of a deity imho.
It's too bad But this woman Talking to the camera It's obvious that she's looking down and reading it and it's very disconcerting they should have put it up you know eye level or something But it really distracts from what she saying it's just too bad too Cause if you're really get by the distractions it's interesting Iballs Eyeballs looking down Eyeballs looking down and reading ha ha ha
Because the art of thinking died out at the end of the Nineteenth Century. The Great War knocked the clacker out of us. The damage it did has never been fully recognized. Thinking has gone right out of fashion. Look at the US and UK today and weep.
Because philosophy as a project is dead, but that doesn" t mean we have to stop thinking, and actually we should think maybe more than ever and not to give our brains fully to computers and AI,
Because most advances in our understanding like quantum physics don't easily lend themselves to philosophy. The basics like oneness with nature have been established long ago.
Most hated? No, only hated by some Jews. Until recently, known to the world by the name he chose to use, Benedict. Calling him “Baruch” is an insult, but since some modern Jews have decided to reclaim him to bolster their “Jewish genius” line, they have pushed the under which he was cursed and vilified by the Dutch rabbis.
@@EarnestApostate I don't know what "dead-naming" means, but calling him "Baruch" is using the name for political purposes rather than using the name he chose and the name the world knew him by up until recently. It's an insult to him and to us.
@@robinharwood5044 in the trans community it is using the given name of someone who has chosen a new name (typically of the opposite, or neutral gender). So other than the reason for picking a new name, it seems the same.
People who talk about Spinoza usually overlook that the temple that excommunicated him didn't know the process, and Spinoza had to teach them how to do an excommunication. Quite ironic.
I had to read Spinoza over 30 years ago. I recall he actually did not support "pantheism", but "panentheism" -- The latter referring to the idea that the entire universe is made up of an elementary "god-stuff", but there is more god-stuff outside this universe. And that extra stuff is capable of thinking and observing the universe. [By analogy, this "improved pantheism" is kind of like saying that God took his leg and turned it into the universe.]... If I recall correctly, in his theories of Philosophical Aesthetics Spinoza also said, "Beauty is food for the soul", so he still had his duality... Spinoza also said that when we learn to interpret art, we gain an understanding of the art and the artist's intentions and beliefs. And so when we look at the universe (that is made of god-stuff), we gain the insight of the "universe artist" that is God. Some of these insights may be the interpretation of my professor... Also, the "Free Will"/"Determinism" debate insists that these positions are opposite and incompatible. (The determinists say that free will is a self-delusion, and we don't make decisions, any more than grass bends to wind.) The way Spinoza's Determinism is presented here is simply the insistence that the universe is consistent, like a giant machine put in motion, and cause and effect continue to operate over time.
Not quite... He didn't postulate "extra stuff" outside the universe (whatever that might mean), but a single substance that can be viewed in different ways. This is Spinoza's theory of attributes. And he said that this substance (of which everything is composed) has infinite attributes. But we (humans) are only aware of two of them: thought and extension (i.e. how compositions of this substance occupy space). It is a matter of controversy what some of these other attributes might be, but an analogy might be: looking at things from many different angles.
He says nothing about extra stuff being able to think or observe, this would go against everything he had written.
Excellent, thank you! Bruno’s Cause, Principle and Unity is a deep precursor to Spinoza’s Ethics-it’s readable and FUNNY. 👍
I love all the banter here - even the uncomplimentary bits! Look for a follow-up video that addresses some of these comments soon. I'll be leaving the Spinoza dating advice alone, however. You guys seem to have that one covered!
I don't know if we can call him the most hated as he wasn't forced to drink hemlock. That said, what I have seen of his work I have found pretty plausible. I have heard some suggest that Substance (god or nature) is energy, which could be.
Well, he lived alone and published nothing after The Tractatus during his life because he probably would have been sentenced to death.
I’ve watched several other professors tutorials on Spinoza. Yours so far is the best.
Now, please don’t take offense; you see, I am a 79 year old retired photographer. Can’t help but see through an artist/photographer’s eyes. I’ve noticed in a lot of these tutorial videos the speaker is at their desk looking down at, I assume, their computer/ laptop. This results in the viewer seeing you from a lower angle. All camera lenses have some distortion, thus the chin and nose are more pronounced. If you could place the laptop/computer on a box/stack of books so your camera lens sees you from an angle just a small bite above your eyes this old photog would be very happy. BTW, the angle I’m describing is a traditional portrait angle. Something called Rembrandt lighting would even more improve the your attractiveness.
Better still if she had some plastic surgery ,removed the tats and stood on top of her wardrobe to film ,oh and some elocution lessons lol
Really enjoying your take on these philosophers, new subscriber!🌍 👍
At 86 my answer to the great mind and philosophy of Spinoza is contained in a little poem that I composed some fifty years ago. It goes like this : ETERNITY. I was the sky and I was the sea. I was the wind and I was the tree. This is how I know that I was, that I am and that when I die, through the quantic atoms of my body I will be born in thousand of different bodies, on earth and in the universe. *** Religions and sacred books are all creation of man. Nobody ever saw or herd God. To explain God is foolish and childish. Reality for us and everything is to be born, to live and die. To be reborn in different forms, sometimes even human.
I went to Columbia in 1960 and there was a large cohort of Jewish students. They, like me, were born in 1942 so all these young men were strongly affected by the Holocaust and most had grown up in intensely intellectual families. I had too, but in my family the main topic of conversation was the economist John Maynard Keynes. As we worked our way through the great thinkers from Plato on there were two who stood out for my Jewish classmates: Spinoza and Marx. After attending lectures on those two I noticed a group of student about 25 strong with everyone talking at once and creating buzz of intense conversation. I remember thinking that I knew who their families talked about over dinner in their homes. I’ve been fond of Spinoza ever since knowing he still caused such intense interest. Marx not so much.
That's a great intro to Spinoza. Spinoza shows that personal happiness cannot occur without boundaries. Just as freedom cannot be realized without responsibilities. In many ways hes a practical philosopher, similar to stoicism. He's also the anti relativist / existentialist which are academic philosophies and not meant to be applied to real life.
Spinoza’s universe is most logical, reasonable and closest to what we actually observe or experience. How else could it be? It’s natural, it’s real, it lives.
I think Spinoza’s might be the most impeccable analysis of the mind-body relation. But it does leave puzzles for us to figure out based on deeper knowledge of the brain-which he says is necessary in the Ethics.
Interesting info, thanks. I find myself essentially in agreement with Spinoza though some things are hard to know. My view is there is a deterministic component to existence ('natural law') and a random component ('free-will'). I think natural law is there for our own benefit, as this all pervading God/nature thing is us. There is likely a specific purpose and destination to our evolution, so in a sense this is like the dominoes falling towards this destination. But there is a lot of room for variety of experience and randomness, because part of the purpose of existence is this God/Nature aspect experiencing itself, and learning through us. I don't think everything is pre-determined, which aligns with what you are saying. If you stop checking your emails at 7pm, and end up sleeping better as a result, this will likely effect a multitude of other events and people in your life, and will not just be isolated to your subjective experience.
Thank you for your thoughtful comment! Part of my understanding of Spinoza's philosophy is that choices big and small have a ripple effect. When we take time to understand the ripples that precede the choices we make in the here and now, we can do so more rationally and gain better outcomes. I also appreciate your blend of deterministic and free-will elements in understanding existence.
@time8871 - Why do you think "There is likely a specific purpose and destination to our evolution?" Are you addressing biological evolution, or using it colloquially about emotions and choices?
@@douglasdavis8395 Just my own observations, answering this question goes beyond the scope of a youtube comment. You are free to live your life and come to your own conclusions. It seems that this life was created in a way that more than one interpretation can be come to in regards to this kind of question, I think intentionally. We have the free-will to come to our own conclusions, and live our lives and make choices accordingly. If things were too obvious it would restrict free-will. I can't teach you my inner experiences. Life is the teacher.
the jewish community of the time were refugees in holland. they excommunicated spinoza so as not to antagonize the dutch protestant authorities, wh/ could have led to problems for continued tolerance.
good presentation, thanks.
Not true.This suggests that he was excommunicated to prevent the Jewish community to be kicked out of the country.The jewish community cursed him with all the thinkable curses in the book.
"When community leaders discuss community interests behind closed doors, you can be sure they are not discussing what is in the community's interest" (Spinoza). No wonder they hated him!
Yeah. He's underrated. Also easy to understand and follow. God and Nature are One, duh. But in his day, this was heresy. He was right then, and right now.
When Europe caught up with Native Americans. Soon they'd also be using other new words: freedom and democracy. (See David Graeber's "The Dawn of Everything.")
Particular philosophers are not hated because they reveal truth, but only because they deny countless truths, and do so rather vehemently.
because that is My scope and I write these weird demented texts people don't like... god Is everything modal process that can be ontologized in the mind... I don't like it he calls them monads with nomads and same thing revealing an unclearing through being
Jesus is the truth .
@@Impaled_Onion-thatsmine - I'm a Christian. But guess what?
Those words "modal process that can be ontologized in the mind" are words which communicate virtually nothing whatsoever to sane individuals. BE PLAIN. If anyone has communicated PLAINLY, then it was surely Christ himself.
@@scotthullinger4684 Really he spoke in parables because he knew people could not understand.
His consistency with contemporary physics is not obvious given the essentially indeterministic component of local quantum physics. However, I think this local indeterminacy is consistent with a global/eternal necessity. So I think you’re right that Spinoza is right, and Einstein (who professed “Spinoza’s God”) was right when he said “God does not play dice.”
But how can deliberating over what food causes sluggishness and then making a conscious choice of avoiding healthier food be a result of deterministic worldview. In fact, if the deterministic worldview is absolutely correct, there should be no possibility of course correction. One act should logically lead to another act of the same species, like the way it happens with animals, who will act in the same way, until a substantial change is introduced in the environment, which will force the animal either to adapt or perish. But in the case of humans we say that he can choose otherwise, and even exert an influence over his environment.
Based Spinoza
This content is great but the audio makes it difficult.
It is worth noting that Spinoza's pantheism also resembles a fundamental tenet of 1st c. BCE Advaita Vedanta Hinduism. The vulgar idea that Hindus worship a bewildering variety of gods ignores the fact that all those deities are understood to be themselves merely contingent and temporal manifestations of ultimate reality: the Omnipresent Omniscience they call Brahman. As Katha Upanishad insists: "Brahman alone is - nothing else is." Kaivalya Upanishad affirms: "By seeing the Self in all beings, and all beings in the Self, one goes to Brahman. That is the only way." The Bhagavad-Gita claims Sri Krsna Himself observed: "True knowledge is to see one changeless life in all the lives and in the Separate, One Inseparable."
All that said, E=mc² elegantly expresses the idea that all observable material reality in the universe is nothing but energy constrained by natural law.
It's amazing how philosophies and fields of knowledge overlap, isn't it?
@@DrElanK It encourages me that a syncretic and inspiring global human culture can indeed be built; and is perhaps a necessary precondition for ensuring our descendants' descendants' descendants' longest possible survival by populating the stars.
His ideas are a continuation of Greek philosophy, it all comes from mystical experience. The Greek Philosophers were mystics obviously the Hindu writers were as well. Spinoza is in my opinion trying to rational explain mystical experience. In the comment section of videos about him you will see Hindus claiming this is the Vedas, Buddhists say it is Buddhism, Jews say it is Kabbalah and Spinoza said this is the philosophy of Jesus and Paul.
@@kpllc4209 Agreed. Whenever people anywhere start to think about "God," they must of necessity rely on imaginary constructs in one form or another. Different flavors of doctrine in all the traditions result from differing reliance on dreams, trance states, hallucinations, or pure fantasies - and attempts to rationalize imaginary constructs more or less rigorously. The seemingly endless gradual struggle to master ancient myths and dogmas with intellectual integrity and scientific rigor continues at its own maddeningly deliberate and occasionally drunken snail's pace.
Enjoyed the content. You made me want to read Spinoza for myself. However, if your goal is to build subscribers, you should consider some changes to your video setup. The camera angle has you looking “down your nose” at viewers, which translates as a sense of superiority, as if you are lecturing us rather than having a conversation. Similarly, your somewhat clipped speaking style comes across as a bit haughty, when your goal should be more intimate and welcoming. Please forgive me if I come across as nitpicking and overly critical. My intention is to give helpful feedback. Good luck with your channel!
Yes be more intimate if she was in the buff , how about that ?
I like this guy. I've came to these same conclusions, especially the illusion of free will.
I like it too when I'm told things that I already know or believe
@@Stevie-J Not a confirmation bias, I simply was not that familiar with this guy. People with similar beliefs tend to flock together, that's why we have political parties.
I wonder if Sapolsky could use him to get his story more together?
“Knowing that free will is an illusion helps us to make better choices.” 🙄
Thanks for your comment! The idea that free will is an illusion might sound strange at first. Within Spinoza's philosophy, we make choices, but there's a huge chain of events and circumstances that lead up to making those choices - habits, emotions, external influences. Spinoza's philosophy suggests we can make better choices when we make an effort to understand how we got there. If we know why we do what we do, we can use reason to guide us toward better outcomes. What's illusory is thinking our will - or choices - doesn't come with proverbial baggage.
@@DrElanK Guide choice? Not guide choice? Both are choices, either may be chosen. Oxymoron.
reminds me of Einstein's idea of the best religion, Buddhism...
Einstein loved Spinoza even wrote poems about him.
the most hated philosopher is probably Nietzsche 😭, but this is interesting video
Just were Jung and know quantum physics are now seeing the world. All is interconnected, matter itself may be conscious and is gets more complex self-awareness develops. Of course we only re-align because it is predetermined by the dominoes preceding us. We only change are direction because it predetermined so the encouragement we get must also be predetermined. Of course one answer to free-will is there are number of multiverses, all with different versions of ourselves, but all predetermined, so no free will. Each universe is self contained set, but the sum total of all the sets (universes) makes a set called total universe. This total set, however, allows for free-will due to the totality of all sets allowing you to have made different choices in each universe, even if they were predetermined in each set. A bit like a Russel Paradox..
Easy easy easy. Spinoza is only hated in the U.S. But Spinoza was as Europan as a thinker can be, and in Europe, he is pretty mainstream by now.
He is basically unknow in the US, the hate is from his time and the decades and centuries that followed.
Like usually, the parts of the philosophers work that are seen as contradictory to other philosophers, or, that deny the existence of things, like free will, come about only because the philosopher defines them differently than other philosophers do.
His approach, while insightful from a certain perspective, fails to incorporate the other perspectives into a whole, and creates therefore the illusion of an incompatibility.
This makes it difficult to compare it with the work of others, because the differently defined words serve a different function there, than in his own.
Which creates the impression of a necessary competition between the philosophies, instead of encouraging to unite the parts that do work with one another.
I guess it can't be helped...
Spinoza is not physicalist, he just say the physical world is all we have. Who says Spinoza is one the most hated philosopher? I think its the quite opposite, maybe his community hated him while lived, but after that? He became big and loved thinker. Einstein was one of his admirer, also for example in Nietzsche and Heidegger there is lots of Spinoza in it.
I'm working on one right now that goes into Spinoza's influence in some of those areas you mention. Thanks for sharing!
God is above nature. God created. Nature is part of that creation. God and nature are not the same. God has always been and is unchangeable. Nature is material and God is spirit.
God is the source of everything. Mystics, christian and otherwise, including Jesus knew and taught of that union. I and the father are one is a acknowledgement of that union with all that is. Religion misses that part of what he taught for control.
Yes, you 'can' use knowledge to alter course, but that knowledge is 100% out of your control. You did not choose your genetics, your parents, your childhood environment, etc. In this sense, free will is the biggest illusion of them all. You have only the freedom to choose given the context of a myriad of things you have zero control of choice over.
Determine whose God is reference.
Tossing words about is not analysis.
What did he have to say about tattoos? Just wondered
nothing
Funny, Russell opens his chapter on Spinoza by calling him the most Beloved of Philosophers, doesn't he?
The noblest and most lovable of the great philosophers. - B Russell The hate was from his lifetime and subsequent generations.
Doesn’t ethics require free will? Otherwise ethics devolves into nothing more than a deterministic description of how nothing couldn’t be otherwise. Ethics are completely incompatible with determinism.
Ethics is the study of moral phenomena, no free will needed
@@kpllc4209
Ethics becomes practically meaningless without personal agency, and Spinoza certainly doesn’t deny personal agency. Spinoza’s definition of free will is not the capacity to choose independently of determinism, but to use one’s reason to act according to one’s free nature and not according to external causes or passions. To do so is to live the ethical life of blessedness.
You say that he was the most hated, in his time. What was the hatred based on? Was it just fear of the new, or was there something more to it? Looking back on it from modern times it doesn’t seem like something that would arouse such emotions.
Some saw the idea of God and Nature as a type of atheism. For the Jewish community, God and Nature as a substance implies a lack of awareness. That would mean that the substance of God and Nature cannot make choices, including designating the Jewish people as the "chosen ones."
@@DrElanK ok, that helps. Was the reaction really so venomous? I’m not doubting you. I’m guessing that since religion was central to pretty much everyone’s life, more so than today, this accounts for it?
@@davidhull1481 To people who believe in religions, everyone who doesn't share their views is the enemy and serving satan, especially back then.
@@davidhull1481 There are stories of Spinoza being stabbed outside the synagogue, although the location and seriousness seem to vary in versions . . . I'm working on a follow-up video that looks at Spinoza's influence, but I have exploring why he gained the moniker of "the most hated philosopher" on my agenda (I'm not the first to call him that).
Doesn't the idea that you can have a good life by doing what he says contradict the idea we have no free will to do it? So, he doesn't believe the no free will thing. Spinoza can drive you crazy.
Determinism, held until he died by Einstein, is nonetheless wrong. Quantum Physics 'building blocks' are chance events, and cannot therefore be predicted.
Secondly, if we knew everything, then all art and science would come to an end, for scientific discovery is driven by the imagination (if we could foretell the future, then we would know what it is before its appearance for us).
Finally, and as Laplace knew, two (or more) lines of causality cross and help create something new and unexpected. Example: Evolution.
What does Spinoza say about getting Laid, I need that advice women are too difficult to conquer for me lately.
You're trying too hard.
Try being nice to them.. or mean to them? I don't know
Maybe you are immature
Have you tried the penis enlarging course on the Internet?
Try having a philosophical conversation with them... And don't violate their personal space until they signal you that they want you to do that.
How do you square Spinoza's determinism with his claim that 'understanding determinism can lead us to act more rationally' - which sounds like free will to me. Unless the 'acting rationally' is itself deterministic too. Then he is merely making an observation - we will act more rationally when we come into contact with this information regarding determinism via soundwaves and our eardrums. Still it does sound free will-ish when he says we can act more rationally, in the sense of 'choosing' to act more rationally.
This is the weak point in any argument claiming that the universe is fully deterministic. However I'd like to offer a different possibility: It is clear that each event has a cause and a consequence, cause and consequence forming a chain throughout time. The common view of determinism is that each cause leads to one and only one consequence. What if this is not so? What if causes can lead to a variety of consequences? This is still a cause-and-effect universe, but exactly what is it that chooses the precise consequence? Maybe this is the extent of free will. I truly have no idea, but I question the fully deterministic model.
Exactly. Spinoza actually supports free will and doesn’t believe everything is purely determined. His whole ethics is based upon actually choosing to live differently by coming to higher levels of knowledge. Otherwise the Ethics becomes just a description about how nothing could be other than it is - and his text is anything but this.
@@Aaron-xb4rq In Spinoza's view you choosing to live differently is based on an almost infinite chain of causes that you have no control over. He explicitly says Nothing could other than it is.
@@kpllc4209
This isn’t exactly true. While Spinoza does say that everything is determined, he also makes it very clear that man is free by nature. The whole point of the last three books of “Ethics” is to show that man has the personal agency to use his reason and understanding to act in accordance with nature and not according to external causes or passions. To live as such is to be free and to live the difficult and rare life of blessedness. This notion of free will is based on the freedom of one's nature while also affirming determinism. One can only act according to their level of understanding. When man's level of understanding changes, how he responds to life can change. Hence, we could say that reality is determined but not predetermined. Freedom makes this so.
@@Aaron-xb4rq In Spinoza's words " to understand is to be free" but not like you are now an autonomous being that is no longer subject to the natural order. You are never truly free or as Spinoza says a "kingdom within a kingdom". A person's level of understanding would be determined by their biology, geography, family, education, resources etc. there is no room in Spinoza's system for what is called classical free will.
is this completely AI generated?
"Philosopher X is right!" - Sorry but you haven't understood philosophy, it is not a political party market.
I cannot unthink the thought if he was born in our time... Could he have ended up with the singularity that Nature is everything and leave out a deity component embedded in his theories. I don't see why the deity component is necessary. But hey as you understand I don't believe in deities as I see it as projections of human mind and not the opposite. The point is that most of his ideas work equally well without the concept of a deity imho.
Basically he is pulling back the curtain and showing where the idea of God comes from.
As soon as I hear God I’m out-
I’m good
24y
It's too bad But this woman Talking to the camera It's obvious that she's looking down and reading it and it's very disconcerting they should have put it up you know eye level or something But it really distracts from what she saying it's just too bad too Cause if you're really get by the distractions it's interesting Iballs Eyeballs looking down Eyeballs looking down and reading ha ha ha
Why is philosophy so stuck in the past?
Because the art of thinking died out at the end of the Nineteenth Century. The Great War knocked the clacker out of us. The damage it did has never been fully recognized. Thinking has gone right out of fashion. Look at the US and UK today and weep.
Because philosophy as a project is dead, but that doesn" t mean we have to stop thinking, and actually we should think maybe more than ever and not to give our brains fully to computers and AI,
Because most advances in our understanding like quantum physics don't easily lend themselves to philosophy. The basics like oneness with nature have been established long ago.
Most hated? No, only hated by some Jews. Until recently, known to the world by the name he chose to use, Benedict.
Calling him “Baruch” is an insult, but since some modern Jews have decided to reclaim him to bolster their “Jewish genius” line, they have pushed the under which he was cursed and vilified by the Dutch rabbis.
Are you saying that calling him Baruch is dead-naming him?
@@EarnestApostate I don't know what "dead-naming" means, but calling him "Baruch" is using the name for political purposes rather than using the name he chose and the name the world knew him by up until recently. It's an insult to him and to us.
@@robinharwood5044 in the trans community it is using the given name of someone who has chosen a new name (typically of the opposite, or neutral gender). So other than the reason for picking a new name, it seems the same.
@@EarnestApostate Thanks. It does seem that "dead-naming" applies.
No, he was basically called Satan by Christians as well and The Tractatus was labeled "a book forged in hell by a renegade Jew and the devil"
Spinoza deserves a lot a better than this.
implausible metaphysics
Can you expand on that?
Buddha would be the most hated philosopher. Banter of the unfalsifiable isn't philosophy.
You're wrong. Spinoza worships himself, so he promotes to worship everything in world, but he doesn't worship Creator, our LORD.
How profound and wise of Spinoza. Life is self generating. Life, god natural law is all one