Jolanta Żelazna

Radical Enlightenment – Spinoza’s Demiurgic Role in the Formation of the Idea of Enlightenment? In his monograph devoted to the history of enlightenment, Radical Enlightenment. Philosophy and the Making of Modernity (1650-1750) British historian Jonathan Irvine Israel formulated a  new theory of dating, sources, and the nature of this period of history. Israel attributed a  major role in the formation of the concepts of enlightenment to the philosophy of Spinoza (1632-1677). The work has caused a series of controversies and criticisms concerning the assessment of facts related to the history of ideas. In this article I refer to interpretations of the role of Spinoza’s philosophy and its early reception between 1663-1678 when it had a direct influence. The political situation in the Netherlands in the period of 1648-1677 (i.e. from the gaining of independence to the death of Spinoza) and the fate of the philosophy of Descartes (since 1650) are two significant factors that played an important role in shaping the initial reception of Spinozism and determined the fate of that philosophy for a long time.

The translations of Holy Scripture to the local European languages in the beginning of Reformation were usually based on Latin Bible. It's language was vastly different from the dialects used by the Old Testament prophets and Christ. By raising the question of the contents of their teachings in A Theologico-Political Treatise, Spinoza underlined the necessity of basing the translations on the sources most approximate to the Hebrew versions of the parables and teachings, initially passed by oral speech only. According to him, the knowledge of the Hebrew language and the traditions of the nation of Israel allowed to distinguish the essence of religion (the contents of the faith) from the tools of providing credibility to the prophecies and from means serving the consolidation of these contents (the religious cult). Up to that point, Jews and Christians alike treated the biblical message as a "sacred" script, not as a record of moral guidelines passed with a simple, common language acommodated to the sensibility of the archaic fishermen, hunters, farmers and merchants. In A Theologico-Political Treatise, Spinoza employed his own method of deciphering the chosen fragments of the Hebrew Bible, sharing the philological and historical knowledge he found useful in bringing out the universal moral guidelines, comprehensible to the "pure mind" and comprising the very meaning of faith.

"Was heisst Denken?" - das ist die Frage die sich in Heideggers schriften vom Anfang seiner philosophischer Arbeit bis zum letzten Interviev zieht. Vorliegender Text ist eine Probe der Rekonstruktion des Gebiets um den diese Frage den Kreis des hermeneutischen Begreifens zieht. Er interpretiert auch ihre Bedeutung im Bereich der Kunst und der Philosophie. Das Problem des fragenden "Subjekts" wurde aber hier nicht beruhrt. Es ist ein Problem, welches die Moglichkeiten seiner Aufgliederung im einen kurzen Artikel weit uberschreitet. Vorliegender Artikel ist nur ein Teil einer umfangreicheren Arbeit, die der Beziehung des "wesentlichen Denkens" von Heidegger zu den - nach seiner art - "wesentlichen" Faden der Philosophie von F. Nietzsche gewidmet ist.

Supplements and Footnotes in Ethics. Reason, Imagination, Understanding This sketch contains a rought analysis of Spinoza's reasons for adding "Footnotes" and "Supplements" to his "Ethics", both of which containing many undefined words disrupting the coherrence of the deductive order of exposition used in the main body of the work. Doubts raised by readers of the early versions of "Ethics" and "A Theologico-Political Treatise" and, most of all, several difficulties understanding the exposition, occasioned by the same parts of the work, independent of reader's education, induced Spinoza to a more detailed survey into the cognitive process and the role of its particular elements. The ability to understand depends on ratio and intellect, whereas the real understanding is the result of association, recognition, imagination and memory. When referring to such "ideal" objects as the objects of geometry, these factors do not introduce any previously known content to the proces of cognition, but when referred to previously gained experience they easily draw the activity of ratio and intellect away from the course of the deduction delineated in the text.

Imagination plays a specific role in Spinoza's Ethics. Similarly to Epictetus' fantasia it is the source of affections of body and mind. Proper understanding of the origins of acataleptic perceptions (Epictetus) and imaginations (Spinoza) together with their interactions enable mind to get free from passive states and to reach happines. In Ethics imagination can be found wherever images are formed - in eyes, that is in body, whereas in mind an occurrence parallel to affection of optic nerves is a perception, or comprehending an idea. I the article I try to present this "parallelism" of psychophysical occurences by referring to everyday examples.

The Notion of Substance in the "Ethics" by Spinoza Spinoza searched for a language that could help him to create a monistic system of ethics. Latin was in the 17th century a fairly malleable medium of communication. In its philosophical use it was largely a creation of Descartes. Spinoza wanted to use it in a way that would resemble Euclid's treatement of geometry. He needed a language that would clearly and precisely describe the proces by which a man could liberate himself from the power of passions that hamper natural propensity for social peace and mental equanimity. He decided to begin by describing nature, which was responsible for man's proclivities and abilities. Consequently he needed a new concept of substance which on the one hand could be defined by some initial axioms, and on the other hand would sufficiently flexible to include various aspects of human thought. It is interesting that when Spinoza had to make a choice between flexibility and content, he resolved to adopt a strict method of reasoning at the cost of the received understanding of substance. It is possible that these linguistic considerations led him to adopt the view that substance is identical with God and as such encompasses all principles of operation of the human mind and premises for the deriving of all fundamental concepts popular in his times.