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Baruch (de) Spinoza was a Dutch philosopher of Portuguese Sephardic Jewish origin. One of the foremost exponents of 17th-century Rationalism and one of the early and seminal thinkers of the Enlightenment and modern biblical criticism including modern conceptions of the self and the universe, he came to be considered "one of the most important philosophers—and certainly the most radical—of the early modern period." Inspired by the groundbreaking ideas of René Descartes, Spinoza became a leading philosophical figure of the Dutch Golden Age. Spinoza's given name, which means "Blessed", varies among different languages. In Hebrew, his full name is written ברוך שפינוזה. "In most of the documents and records contemporary with Spinoza's years within the Jewish community, his name is given as 'Bento'". In his works in Latin, he used the name Benedictus de Spinoza.
Ontology is the branch of philosophy that studies concepts such as existence, being, becoming, and reality. It includes the questions of how entities are grouped into basic categories and which of these entities exist on the most fundamental level. Ontology is sometimes referred to as the science of being and belongs to the major branch of philosophy known as metaphysics.
Pantheism is the belief that reality is identical with divinity, or that all things compose an all-encompassing, immanent god or goddess. Pantheist belief does not recognize a distinct personal god, anthropomorphic or otherwise, but instead characterizes a broad range of doctrines differing in forms of relationships between reality and divinity. Pantheistic concepts date back thousands of years, and pantheistic elements have been identified in various religious traditions. The term pantheism was coined by mathematician Joseph Raphson in 1697 and has since been used to describe the beliefs of a variety of people and organizations.
Panentheism is the belief that the divine intersects every part of the universe and also extends beyond space and time. The term was coined by the German philosopher Karl Krause in 1828 to distinguish the ideas of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) and Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling (1775–1854) about the relation of God and the universe from the supposed pantheism of Baruch Spinoza, after reviewing Hindu scriptures. Unlike pantheism, which holds that the divine and the universe are identical, panentheism maintains an ontological distinction between the divine and the non-divine and the significance of both.
Substance theory, or substance–attribute theory, is an ontological theory positing that objects are constituted each by a substance and properties borne by the substance but distinct from it. In this role, a substance can be referred to as a substratum or a thing-in-itself. Substances are particulars that are ontologically independent: they are able to exist all by themselves. Another defining feature often attributed to substances is their ability to undergo changes. Changes involve something existing before, during and after the change. They can be described in terms of a persisting substance gaining or losing properties. Attributes or properties, on the other hand, are entities that can be exemplified by substances. Properties characterize their bearers, they express what their bearer is like.
In metaphysics, extension signifies both 'stretching out' as well as later 'taking up space', and most recently, spreading one's internal mental cognition into the external world.
In philosophy, rationalism is the epistemological view that "regards reason as the chief source and test of knowledge" or "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification". More formally, rationalism is defined as a methodology or a theory "in which the criterion of the truth is not sensory but intellectual and deductive".
Naturalistic pantheism, also known as scientific pantheism, is a form of pantheism. It has been used in various ways such as to relate God or divinity with concrete things, determinism, or the substance of the universe. God, from these perspectives, is seen as the aggregate of all unified natural phenomena. The phrase has often been associated with the philosophy of Baruch Spinoza, although academics differ on how it is used.
John Scotus Eriugena or Johannes Scotus Erigena or John the Scot was an Irish Catholic Neoplatonist philosopher, theologian and poet of the Early Middle Ages. Bertrand Russell dubbed him "the most astonishing person of the ninth century". The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy states he "is the most significant Irish intellectual of the early monastic period. He is generally recognized to be both the outstanding philosopher of the Carolingian era and of the whole period of Latin philosophy stretching from Boethius to Anselm."
In philosophy, transcendence is the basic ground concept from the word's literal meaning, of climbing or going beyond, albeit with varying connotations in its different historical and cultural stages. It includes philosophies, systems, and approaches that describe the fundamental structures of being, not as an ontology, but as the framework of emergence and validation of knowledge of being. "Transcendental" is a word derived from the scholastic, designating the extra-categorical attributes of beings.
Spinozism is the monist philosophical system of Baruch Spinoza that defines "God" as a singular self-subsistent substance, with both matter and thought being attributes of such.
Ethics, Demonstrated in Geometrical Order, usually known as the Ethics, is a philosophical treatise written in Latin by Baruch Spinoza. It was written between 1661 and 1675 and was first published posthumously in 1677.
Affect is a concept, used in the philosophy of Baruch Spinoza and elaborated by Henri Bergson, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, that places emphasis on bodily or embodied experience. The word affect takes on a different meaning in psychology and other fields.
In monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. God is usually conceived of as being omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent and omnibenevolent as well as having an eternal and necessary existence. God is most often held to be incorporeal, with said characteristic being related to conceptions of transcendence or immanence.
Natura naturans is a Latin term coined during the Middle Ages, meaning "nature naturing" or, more loosely, "nature doing what nature does". These terms are most commonly associated with the philosophy of Baruch Spinoza. For Spinoza, natura naturans refers to the self-causing activity of nature, while natura naturata refers to nature considered as a passive product of an infinite causal chain.
In early philosophies of psychology and metaphysics, conatus is an innate inclination of a thing to continue to exist and enhance itself. This "thing" may be mind, matter, or a combination of both. Over the millennia, many different definitions and treatments have been formulated, including seventeenth-century philosophers René Descartes, Baruch Spinoza, Gottfried Leibniz, and Thomas Hobbes who had made significant contributions. The conatus may refer to the instinctive "will to live" of living organisms or to various metaphysical theories of motion and inertia. Often the concept is associated with God's will in a pantheist view of Nature. The concept may be broken up into separate definitions for the mind and body and split when discussing centrifugal force and inertia.
The epistemic theory of miracles is the name given by the philosopher William Vallicella to the theory of miraculous events given by Augustine of Hippo and Baruch Spinoza. According to the theory, there are no events contrary to nature — that is no "transgressions", in Hume's sense, of the laws of nature. An event is a miracle only in the sense that it does not agree with our understanding of nature, or fit our picture of nature, or that it thwarts our expectations as to how the world should behave. According to a perfect scientific understanding there would be no miracles at all.
Philosophical Inquiries into the Essence of Human Freedom is an 1809 work by Friedrich Schelling. It was the last book he finished in his lifetime, running to some 90 pages of a single long essay. It is commonly referred to as his "Freiheitsschrift" or "freedom essay".
Univocity of being is the idea that words describing the properties of God mean the same thing as when they apply to people or things. It is associated with the doctrines of the Scholastic theologian John Duns Scotus.
Benedictus de Spinoza's philosophy encompasses nearly every area of philosophical discourse, including metaphysics, epistemology, political philosophy, ethics, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of science. It earned Spinoza an enduring reputation as one of the most important and original thinkers of the seventeenth century.
References
- ↑ Ethics, Part I, Prop. 29, Scholium. Trans: Edwin Curley. London: Penguin, 1996.
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