Nese Aksoy

Immanuel Kant proclaims that the ‘transcendental logic’, the form of logic that he uniquely offers, aims at laying out the necessary laws and principles of nature on the basis of the synthesis of the a priori concepts of understanding and the a priori elements of intuition. In this regard, logic, in Kantian sense, is directed towards the knowledge of the nature which he identifies as the phenomenal world (appearances). The noumenal world (transcendental concepts of God, immortality and freedom), on the other hand, is acclaimed to extend beyond the boundaries of logic. Likewise, Ludwig Wittgenstein points to the boundaries of logic. In his view, logic is limited to the states of affairs in the world (the whole reality). In other words, Wittgenstein argues that one can logically think and talk about merely the facts in the world. The transcendental concepts like logical form, philosophy, aesthetic and ethics, on the other hand, are offered to be beyond the boundaries of logicality. Hence, my aim in this study will be to embark on the boundaries and the legitimate use of logic in Kant and Wittgenstein in parallel to each other.

In this article I examine how a teleological (or purposive) reading of Spinoza’s conatus shapes the ethical framework of his philosophy. I first introduce Spinoza’s criticism of teleology and argue contra many critics that Spinoza has a mild approach to human teleology. On the basis of this idea, I develop the claim that the human conatus includes purposive elements such that it is envisioned as a purposive being that is oriented towards the adequate knowledge of Nature or God, the conceptions of wisdom, love and joy and the notion of an ideal human nature. From the teleological reading of human conatus, I draw the conclusion that Spinoza’s ethics is inclusive of objective, humanistic, and essentialist elements in the sense that it situates human agents as directed towards ethical ends to be pursued through their conative activity. In this sense, throughout this paper, I take issue with the anti-teleological reading of conatus that is predominantly related to the subjectivistic, anti-humanistic, and non-essentialist interpretation of Spinoza’s ethics. In doing so, I argue that Spinoza’s ethics is not entirely free from objective, humanistic and essentialist elements, by putting a particular emphasis on the distinguishing character of the purposive essence of his human conatus.