Ursula Renz

According to a recent interpretation by Samuel Newlands, not only Leibniz, but already Spinoza embraced a version of the Principle of Plenitude (POP), which posits that the maximal number of (com)possible entities exists. On this interpretation, Spinoza’s endorsement of POP is in tension with another important feature of his account, namely, his commitment to the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR). Whereas POP embraces plenitude, PSR opts for sparsity. This chapter takes this characterization, with which the authors largely agree, as background to a discussion of Leibniz’s rehabilitation of divine will in his early philosophy. In the authors’ view, while Leibniz agrees with Spinoza that both POP and PSR obtain, he thinks that a commitment to the former is not well-grounded if there is no distinction between intellect and will in God. This is, the authors claim, part of the reason why he restored divine will, even though he ultimately subordinates it to divine intellect.

On a frequent understanding going back to Fichte, the Ethics constitutes a system that cannot possibly be believed by a finite subject. In this chapter, taking a couple of findings regarding Spinoza’s use of the terms ‘opinio’ and ‘iudicium’ as well as an observation regarding his notion of “having ideas” as my point of departure, I shall advocate for the opposite view. For Spinoza, I argue, belief is an essentially human attitude; it is only instantiated when a finite subject voices or endorses a view from his determinate, historically situated perspective. It will turn out that this view is not only in line with philology, but it suggests an understanding of the metaphysical constitution of beliefs that is also fundamental for Spinoza’s views on anthropology and politics.

This volume gathers various contributions on the role of the human perspective and the human lifeform in Spinoza’s philosophy as well as on the resources that Spinoza provides for such a philosophy. Its aim is to draw attention to those parts of Spinoza’s philosophy where he is explicitly engaged in a reflection on human life or some peculiarity of it, and the texts collected here argue in various ways that notions such as ‘human being’, ‘human life’, and related notions play an important role in his thought in non-trivial ways. These hitherto neglected perspectives on Spinoza’s philosophy result in accounts of a Spinozistic universe that is no longer completely devoid of particulars and of all those features of reality that are usually taken to be fundamental to the human condition and experience, such as subjectivity or perspectivity, temporality, and emotional salience.

This volume gathers various contributions on the role of the human perspective and the human lifeform in Spinoza’s philosophy as well as on the resources that Spinoza provides for such a philosophy. While significant parts of the current scholarship tend towards ascribing an acosmist view, more recent interpretations have begun to consider human life and specifically human attitudes as being of fundamental concern to Spinoza. The aim of this book to draw attention to those parts of Spinoza’s philosophy where he is explicitly engaged in a reflection on human life or some peculiarity of it, and the texts collected here argue in various ways that notions such as ‘human being’, ‘human life’, and related notions play an important role in his thought and that they do so in non-trivial ways. These hitherto neglected perspectives on Spinoza’s philosophy result in accounts of a Spinozistic universe that is no longer completely devoid of particulars and of all those features of reality that are usually taken to be fundamental to the human condition and experience, such as subjectivity or perspectivity, temporality, and emotional salience. In doing so, this book provides new avenues for the study of Spinoza’s philosophy by highlighting the role of the human perspective for his metaphysics, ethics, philosophy of mind, epistemology, and social as well as political philosophy. Thus, the volume contains highly original contributions from leading scholars that is going to have an impact on the full breath of Spinoza studies.

Although Spinoza refrains from providing a definition of man, he is much concerned with developing an understanding of the special features of both the human constitution and the human life. Moreover, Spinoza assumes that there is in man, but not in animals, a specific kind of striving that goes beyond the mere satisfaction of bodily needs, a striving which is also described in terms of man’s invention of a model of human perfection. The essay accounts for this by suggesting a reading of Spinoza’s _Ethics_ in terms of a theory of the good life for humans. It begins by elaborating on Spinoza’s notion of a specifically human good and the role it plays for human motivation. It continues by defending a reading of his doctrine of conatus that is not committed to some form of species-related essentialism. The essay concludes by showing how Spinoza’s ideas on goodness in general allow for the conception of human perfection and blessedness.

This chapter addresses the question whether our consciousness of being alive can be a source of knowledge, and if so, of what kind of knowledge. It examines this question as it is discussed by a sequence of early modern philosophers who all implicitly consider the issue. The chapter begins with a discussion of the early modern idea of consciousness, viewed as an epistemic relation. It goes on to show that interest in the notion that we are immediately aware of being alive arose in reaction to Descartes’ dualism. For example, the Cartesian Louis de La Forge attempted, but failed, to accommodate the feeling of being alive within a dualist framework. Against this background, the chapter turns to discuss Spinoza’s early attempts to appeal to our consciousness of being alive in order to refute Cartesian scepticism. It concludes that our consciousness of being alive can be considered a source of knowledge, and that, however simple this lesson appears, it may be of moral importance.

This chapter examines the shift from Spinoza’s early characterization of the intellect as “wholly passive” to his later views, according to which mental states consist in the activity of forming ideas. Following a close reading of the relevant passages of the _Short Treatise on God, Man, and His Well-Being_, it argues that, in contrast to Descartes, Spinoza is not bound by any kind of systematic constraint to conceive of the intellect as either passive or active. The reason is that, according to him, there is no real distinction between the understanding and the will, or to be precise, between the activity of understanding and the activity of willing. the chapter investigates the development of Spinoza’s use of the notion of idea, and it contends that this development is at least partially due to Spinoza’s new approach to the mental.

The present article proposes to revisit the “Neurath-Haller thesis” – i.e. the claim that Austrian philosophy is distinct from German philosophy because Kantianism did not play a major role in shaping it – by examining the development of Brentano’s dismissive attitude towards Kant through the lens of Brentano’s idea of immediate evidence. Its main point is that although the presuppositions of this idea are elaborated on in the Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, it is in Brentano’s later epistemological writings that this idea is invoked in order to corroborate Brentano’s understanding of what grounds philosophical insight. The article concludes by comparing this account of the development of Brentano’s philosophy with the role Brentano’s Anti-Kantianism is assumed to play according to Haller’s conception of ‘Austrian philosophy’. I will argue that, while the Neurath-Haller thesis is not mistaken, there is a subtler story to be told about the role Kant played in Austria as well as about the reasons why Austrian philosophy “spared itself the interlude with Kant”.