Spinoza on Learning to Live Together

Erscheinungsjahr 2020
ISBN: 978-0-19-871307-4
Verlag: Oxford University Press(UK)

Buch, Englisch, 240 Seiten, Format (B × H): 161 mm x 240 mm, Gewicht: 529 g

Philosophising, as Spinoza conceives it, is the project of learning to live joyfully. Yet this is also a matter of learning to live together, and the surest manifestation of philosophical insight is the capacity to sustain a harmonious way of life. Here, Susan James defends this overall interpretation of Spinoza's philosophy and explores its bearing on contemporary philosophical debates around issues such as religious toleration, putting our knowledge to work, and the environmental crisis.

Part I focuses on Spinoza's epistemology. Philosophical understanding empowers us by giving us access to truths about ourselves and the world, and by motivating us to act on them. It gives us reasons for living together and enhances our ability to live co-operatively. Part II takes up Spinoza's claim that, to cultivate this kind of understanding, we need to live together in political communities. It explores his analysis of how states can develop a co-operative ethos. Finally, living joyfully compels us to look beyond the state to our relationship with the rest of nature. James concludes with discussions of some of the virtues this requires.

Autoren/Hrsg.

James, Susan

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Geschichte der Westlichen Philosophie Westliche Philosophie: Neuzeit
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Ethik, Moralphilosophie
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Sozialphilosophie, Politische Philosophie
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politikwissenschaft Allgemein Politische Theorie, Politische Philosophie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

- Introduction: Philosophy as the Art of Living Together

- Part I. Learning to Live Together

- Creating Rational Understanding: Spinoza as a Social Epistemologist

- When Does Truth Matter? The Relation Between Theology and Philosophy

- Spinoza on Superstition: Coming to Terms with Fear

- Narrative as a Means to Freedom: Spinoza on the Uses of Imagination

- Responding Emotionally to Fiction: A Spinozist Approach

- Part II. The Politics of Living Together

- Law and Sovereignty in Spinoza's Politics

- Natural Rights as Powers to Act

- Democracy and the Good Life in Spinoza's Philosophy

- Freedom, Slavery and the Passions

- Freedom of Conscience and Civic Peace: Spinoza on Piety

- Part III. Philosophical Communities

- Freedom and Nature: A Spinozist Invitation

- The Affective Cost of Philosophical Self-Transformation

- Fortitude: Living in the Light of our Knowledge

Über Autor(innen)

Susan James is a professor of Philosophy at Birkbeck College London. Her main areas of interest are early-modern philosophy, feminist philosophy, political philosophy, and the philosophy of art. She is the author of Passion and Action: The Emotions in Early-Modern Philosophy (Oxford, 1997) and Spinoza on Philosophy, Religion, and Politics: The Theologico-Political Treatise (Oxford, 2012).