Spinoza on God and Metaphysics

On Baruch Spinoza's Ethics (1677), books 1 and 2.

Time warp to 2010 when Mark, Seth, and Wes recorded this lo-fi burst of energy, made available to you now to kick of our June Spinoza-fest, with two full discussions coming out over the next four weeks on Spinoza's Tractatus Theologico-Politicus. Dylan and Mark have recorded a new introduction connecting the two works.

Our main focus Spinoza's weird, immanent, non-personal conception of God:

God is everything, therefore the world is God as apprehended through some particular attributes, namely insofar as one of his aspects is infinite space (extension, i.e. matter) and insofar as one of his aspects is mind (our minds being chunks or "modes" of the big God mind).

Also, if you're not going to sell out and go for a university position in philosophy, should you instead grind lenses in your attic without adequate ventilation? (Hint: no) Plus, the Amsterdam of yesterday, whose heady aroma drove people to write like Euclid, property dualism rears its ugly head, and Mel Gibson as Rousseau!

Read a free version online or buy the book.

One place to read the earlier Spinoza book Mark refers to, A Short Treatise on God, Man, and his Well-Being (1660), is here. The Karen Armstrong book referred to is The Case for God, and at the end Wes recommends Matthew Stewart's The Courtier and the Heretic: Leibniz, Spinoza, and the Fate of God in the Modern World. Seth also brings up Giles Deluze's Spinoza: Practical Philosophy. The dumbed down, non-geometric presentation of the Ethics that I talk about is here. #ethics #spinoza #metaphysics #god #immanence Go to blog: http://partiallyexaminedlife.com/2017/05/29/reissue-ep24-spinoza/