Taylor Sharpe, Wes Wynmor, Nick Depietro

1
Spinoza

• Taylor Sharpe, Wes Wynmor, Nick Depietro

2
Background

• Belonged to the community of Jews from Spain and
  Portugal that fled the Inquisition
• Studied Latin and changed his name from Baruch to
  the Latin form Benedict.
• Excommunication from Jewish group in 1656
• He was a lens grinder ( eventually caused his
  death)

3
Influences
Influences

• Descartes
• Rejected his characterization of love (imagining
  ourselves joined to a loved object)
• His own We have no control over our passions
  because it is metaphysically impossible for the
  mind to work in the way that Descartes describes.
• Stoics
• sympathetic to their desire for escape from the
  passions
• Hobbes
• Like Hobbes, Spinoza takes what is essential to
  humans to be a kind of endeavor
• strives fundamentally for self-preservation and
  he deems passions an expression of this drive

4
Sense Perception

• Spinoza thought sense perception has its origin
  in the action of an external body upon one or
  another of the sensory organs of ones own body.
• The major seventeenth-century rationalists-Descar
  tes, Malebranche, Spinoza, and Leibniz-are named
  because they placed emphasis on reason or
  intellect, by contrast with the senses, for
  acquiring important truths.
• They agreed that the basic truths of metaphysics
  are intellect acting alone, independently of the
  senses.

5
Discussion!

• How realistic do you think Spinozas opinions of
  sense perception are?
• Do you think his background has any effect on his
  philosophical views?

6
Works Cited

• "Baruch Spinoza Spinoza's Life
  Infoplease.com." Infoplease Encyclopedia,
  Almanac, Atlas, Biographies, Dictionary,
  Thesaurus. Free Online Reference, Research
  Homework Help. Infoplease.com. 2007. Web. 10
  Feb. 2011. lthttp//www.infoplease.com/ce6/people/
  A0861275.htmlgt.
• Dutton, Blake D. "Benedict De Spinoza
  (1632-1677).
• Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 7 July
  2005. Web. 10 Feb. 2011. lthttp//www.iep.utm.edu/
  spinoza/SSH4b.igt.
• Schmitter, Amy M., "17th and 18th Century
  Theories of Emotions", The Stanford Encyclopedia
  of Philosophy (Winter 2010 Edition),
• Edward N. Zalta (ed.), 9 Feb.
  2011. lthttp//plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2010
  /entries/emotions17th 18th/gt.
• Nelson, Alan. "3. Rationalist Theories of Sense
  Perception and MindBody Relation A Companion
  to Rationalism Blackwell Reference Online."
  Blackwell Reference Online Home. 2005. Web. 10
  Feb. 2011. lthttp//www.blackwellreference.com/pub
  lic/tocnode?idg9781405109 093_chunk_g978140510909
  37gt.