15 May 2006 15:58:13 -0000
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[spinoza-ethics] Digest Number 333
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There are 3 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1. Metaphysics
From: "md_hannan_05" md_hannan_05@yahoo.com
2. Re: Metaphysics
From: "Gary Geiser" aahouse10@yahoo.com
3. Re: Metaphysics
From: "md_hannan_05" md_hannan_05@yahoo.com
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message 1
From: "md_hannan_05" md_hannan_05@yahoo.com
Date: Sun May 14, 2006 7:19am(PDT)
Subject: Metaphysics
Gary,
I have not read Husserl. Therefore I thought I should read Husserl
before continuing this discussion.
However, I think Hume's criticism of Spinoza is much relevant here. In
Hume's `A Treatise on Human Nature : Part 1' he severely criticised
Spinoza (and I believe it is all about knowledge). What do you think
about it?
-Tahmidal
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message 2
From: "Gary Geiser" aahouse10@yahoo.com
Date: Mon May 15, 2006 1:02am(PDT)
Subject: Re: Metaphysics
Hi Tahmidal
I took a course on that work by Hume. As I recall, Hume has laws of
association, but he's comparing simple ideas to one another in ways that
are descriptive, like with contrast, contiguity, and so on.
Spinoza is starting from association as metonymy strictly. X subsists
insofar as God is affected by Y, and not insofar as X is about Y, or Y
about X.
Thus, X is envious, not because Y is beautiful, but because the state
of X's body is affected by both himself and Y, and the confusion
produces the impression that Y is beautiful (a purely subjective
construction). X perceives God affected by Y on the same spot X does for every
perception, where X imagines the world to be about himself.
Hume starts from the state of his body, and applies rules (admittedly
through custom and habit) to it, and never builds from there.
Hegel took Spinoza very seriously, and combined him with the
dialectical method to produce very interesting results. And he did so to get
beyond Kant's impasse.
It's curious that while Spinoza actually had a Buddhistic conception
of detachment from bodily modifications, he embraced a hard Parmenidean
ontology of Being, while Hume had a Buddhist ontology of subjectivity
and accidents, yet was essentially concerned with breaking through every
metaphysical standpoint, and just living life.
md_hannan_05 <md_hannan_05@yahoo.com> wrote:
Gary,
I have not read Husserl. Therefore I thought I should read Husserl
before continuing this discussion.
However, I think Hume's criticism of Spinoza is much relevant here. In
Hume's `A Treatise on Human Nature : Part 1' he severely criticised
Spinoza (and I believe it is all about knowledge). What do you think
about it?
-Tahmidal
This is one of the lists sponsored by The Free Lance Academy, home of
Slow Reading: http://www.freelance-academy.org To unsubscribe by
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________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message 3
From: "md_hannan_05" md_hannan_05@yahoo.com
Date: Mon May 15, 2006 5:09am(PDT)
Subject: Re: Metaphysics
Gary,
(I am not much knowledgeable about western philosophic tradition. So,
it is a kind of impertinence that I am joining and giving my opinion.
This is, I would like to say, a kind of realisation of the self of an
eastern human in western way, that is, putting my self in a
historical realisation process with which it is difficult to identify
with.)
I remember that many days ago I read an article by A. N. Whitehead
where Whitehead wrote that Spinoza did not follow the path
contemporary western philosophers took. Instead of subjective
thinking, he followed the objective way of philosophising, like
ancient Greeks.
Now, Gary, the point I want to make (which Whitehead also made) that
in his Treatise of Human Nature, David Hume determinedly
differentiated between `natural philosophy/science' and metaphysics,
in many cases, whenever his discussion seems to go beyond subjective
thinking, he readily stops to continue on and justifies it by saying
that, `but this is not a matter of us, this belongs to the field of
natural philosophy bla bla bla.........'
On the other hand, this is not true about Spinoza's doctrine of
knowing. But well, I have to admit that I have not fully comprehended
Spinoza's doctrine of knowledge. What is knowledge? making a system,
connecting things in a system (by cause and effect, which has been
described by Hume as nothing but a tendency of human mind)? Is this
the way the modes come to know?
-Tahmidal
--- In spinoza-ethics@yahoogroups.com, Gary Geiser
wrote:
Hi Tahmidal
I took a course on that work by Hume. As I recall, Hume has laws
of association, but he's comparing simple ideas to one another in
ways that are descriptive, like with contrast, contiguity, and so on.
Spinoza is starting from association as metonymy strictly. X
subsists insofar as God is affected by Y, and not insofar as X is
about Y, or Y about X.
Thus, X is envious, not because Y is beautiful, but because the
state of X's body is affected by both himself and Y, and the
confusion produces the impression that Y is beautiful (a purely
subjective construction). X perceives God affected by Y on the same
spot X does for every perception, where X imagines the world to be
about himself.
Hume starts from the state of his body, and applies rules
(admittedly through custom and habit) to it, and never builds from
there.
Hegel took Spinoza very seriously, and combined him with the
dialectical method to produce very interesting results. And he did so
to get beyond Kant's impasse.
It's curious that while Spinoza actually had a Buddhistic
conception of detachment from bodily modifications, he embraced a
hard Parmenidean ontology of Being, while Hume had a Buddhist
ontology of subjectivity and accidents, yet was essentially concerned
with breaking through every metaphysical standpoint, and just living
life.
This is one of the lists sponsored by The Free Lance Academy, home
of Slow Reading:
e-mail, mailto:spinoza-ethics-unsubscribe@egroups.com
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