Spinoza Circle: Life as a Marionette: The Role of the Imagination in Spinoza’s Ethics, Part V

At our meeting on Thursday 21st March, 3:00 – 5:00pm, we are very pleased to have Prof. Michael A. Rosenthal (University of Washington) who will speak on:

“Life as a Marionette: The Role of the Imagination in Spinoza’s Ethics, Part V”

Birkbeck, University of London, Dreyfus Room, 26 Russell Square, London WC1B 5DQ

Abstract:

The goal of Part V of the Ethics is to show that humans possess the power to be free. It must be a conception in which freedom is thoroughly compatible with necessity. It is difficult for us as finite beings to understand this idea and to act in accordance with it. Spinoza thinks that the main obstacle is the false idea of the free will, i.e., the power to act independently of any system of determinate causes. Spinoza does not think that we can overcome this prejudice, rooted in our ignorance, so easily. One of the most interesting features of his system is that at key points of his arguments Spinoza has recourse to the very images and passions that he finds problematic in order to produce effects that ultimately make us more reasonable. It may seem that when we arrive at Part V of the Ethics, the very last part in which he shows us that human freedom is tied to the power of the intellect, we should be able to dispense with these inadequate ideas and proceed solely according to reason. In this paper, however, I want to argue that perhaps the most important idea—the definition of freedom as acting according to the necessity of our own nature within a determined system—is so difficult to grasp that Spinoza still has to have recourse to the imagination to make sense of it. In the first propositions of Part V, Spinoza uses reason to sketch an imaginative picture of the self as a kind of marionette. It is not yet what it would be to live according to reason, but what it would be like to live—or as if we are living—according to reason. Even though, strictly speaking, this image is false, it nonetheless useful. This thought-image serves as a kind of aid to the individual to become free.


All welcome and no registration is required.

The following meeting will be on Thursday 2nd May 2019, 3 – 5pm when we will host Prof. Edwin Curley (University of Michigan).

John Heyderman

https://londonspinozacircle.wordpress.com

London Spinoza Circle

At our meeting on Thursday 1st November, 3:00-5:00pm, we are pleased to have Mogens Lærke (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) who will speak on:

The Apostolic Style: Spinoza on Fraternal Advice and the Freedom to Philosophize

Bloomsbury Room (G.35), Ground Floor, South Block, Senate House, London WC1E 7HU

Abstract:

In this paper, I discuss a chapter of the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus that is rarely commented on, namely Chapter XI. It is particular for the TTP in that it is exclusively dedicated to the interpretation of the New Testament, more specifically, the Apostles' Letters. I will show how, in the first part of that chapter, Spinoza argues that the epistolary style of the apostles, and the discursive room it establishes, can serve as a paradigm for the exercise of the “liberty to philosophize” that he shall proceed to defend in Tractatus, chap. XX.


We are planning to hold two meetings this term and are currently organising the schedule for the remainder of the academic year.

Thursday 6th December 2018, 3 – 5pm, Room number to be confirmed.
Clare Carlisle (King’s College London)
George Eliot’s Spinoza.

No registration is required and meetings are open to all.

London Spinoza Circle: Deriving Culture from Nature: Articulate and Inarticulate Bodies in Spinoza's Philosophy of Nature

Thursday 25th January, 3pm-5pm
Room B04, Birkbeck College Main Building, Malet St, Bloomsbury, London WC1E 7HX.
(Entrance from Torrington Square)

Spinoza’s philosophy is often criticised for lacking a direct consideration of art. According to commentators one of the reasons for this is his strong naturalism. Dr. Christopher Thomas (Manchester Metropolitan University) will argue that rather than see Spinoza’s naturalism as reductive in terms of a theory of art and culture, it actually allows for a novel understanding of the work of art as a particularly ‘articulate’ part of nature.

By turning to the two places that Spinoza mentions art in the Ethics–IIIP2Schol and IVP45Schol respectively–, as well as his theory of the sanctity of Scripture in the Theological-Political Treatise, this paper will develop the theory of art and culture that follows from, and is implicit in, Spinoza’s philosophical naturalism.

All are welcome and no registration is required.

http://londonspinozacircle.wordpress.com/


Future Meetings, all 3 - 5pm in the Paul Hirst Room, Department of Politics, Birkbeck College, at 10 Gower Street London WC1E 6HJ,

February 15th, 2018 – Prof Yitzhak Melamed (Johns Hopkins University)
March 1st, 2018 – Dr Daniel Whistler (Royal Holloway)
March 22nd, 2018 – Dr Alexander Douglas (St Andrews University)

London Spinoza Circle: Common Notions and the Origin of Rational Ideas

At the next meeting of the London Spinoza Circle we are very pleased to have Dr Andrea Sangiacomo (University of Groningen) who will speak on Spinoza’s account of common notions and the origin of rational ideas.

The meeting will take place on Thursday 30th November, 3pm-5pm in the Paul Hirst Room, Department of Politics, Birkbeck College, at 10 Gower Street London WC1E 6HJ,


Abstract

An everlasting controversy in Spinoza scholarship concerns the origin of rational ideas. Two parties have been opposing each other. According to the empiricist approach, ideas of reason somehow derive from imagination, while innatism holds that they are built upon innate ideas. In this paper, I propose a revised version of the empiricist approach that is capable of fully accounting for Spinoza’s position. I argue that reason and imagination express different ways in which the body interacts with external causes. Imaginative ideas are the mental counterpart of interactions based on some form of disagreement in nature between the human body and external causes, while rational ideas based on common notions are the mental expression of agreement in nature between the human body and external cases. This reading of common notions as an expression of some degree of “agreement in nature” (natura convenire) among things leads to appreciate of the often neglected difference between universal and proper common notions, which in turns enables Spinoza to account for different degrees of generality that rational ideas can have.

All are welcome and no registration is required.

Please put these dates of future meetings in your diary.

January 25th, 2018 – Christopher Thomas (University of Aberdeen)
February 15th, 2018 – Prof Yitzhak Melamed (Johns Hopkins University)
March 1st, 2018 – Dr Daniel Whistler (Royal Holloway)
March 22nd, 2018 – Dr Alexander Douglas (St Andrews University)

https://londonspinozacircle.wordpress.com