/lit/ - Literature

>>21770360
>To not get into Spinoza shows a lack of curiosity but to not get over him is a sign of stagnation.

i opened early life section

>>21770360
His physiogamy tells me that his IQ was only 140ish

>>21770475
I’m sure yours is so much higher, right?

I googled his early life and decided to stay out

>>21770360
When I realized Deism and Pantheism is just Crypto-Atheist faggotry.

>>21770547
>Ackshually, saying that god is everything is a form of atheism!
Do you realize how retarded this sounds

>>21770607
>>Ackshually, saying that god is everything is a form of atheism!
It is. Saying God is Nature or Nature is God is meaningless pseudo-intellectual horseshit, merely an autistic semantical abstraction.
>Do you realize how retarded this sounds
No I'm white and have a high IQ what's wrong with my conclusion?

>>21770619
it's atheism mixed with new age vaguely hindu faggotry

when I realised that his immanence of God is a good way to filter out all the superstition and empty ritualism of mass religion a la TPP that can be an unfortunate side effect of a transcendent God, but also then realised that the eternity of the mind in part V of the ethics is not nearly as fully realised as it could be compared to neoplatonism or buddhism or similar transcendent metaphsyics which go into much more detail concerning the transcendence of the mind from the altercation of forms and the subtleties of reaching the very highest points of the metaphysical apex without accidentally stopping at an inferior point

>>21770619
>meaningless pseudo-intellectual horseshit
If there is a God, he is a Spinozist. Anything less is incoherent drivel

>>21770607
If you understand scholastic polemics then it actually is. Being as a gradual difference and Being as analogical difference does pretty much define what (a) God should and shouldn't be.

I don't believe in God, btw.

>>21772111
I can see why you thought this post was clever, but what's relevant when making appeals to a natural theology is whether that God can potentially be transcendent in nature. A God that is perfectly immanent, somehow entirely omniscient, yet possesses no will? That's not a God at all. Chaos, but not God.

>>21772625
If God has a will, it means stuff is acting on him such that he is deciding to will this or that. What is acting on God? Wasn't he supposed to be... uhh... beyond all that? Or are you just anthropomorphizing God's Will™ because the Bible requires it as a priestly religion wherein specialists claim to have custodianship over such information and its exposition? In any case, coming from you "chaos" is just "things I dislike" and so we get closer and closer to the gnosticism subterranean to your theology of having a good guy who does good things to good people and bad things to bad people, which is totally incoherent if taken as anything more than a hasty reification of the affects upon you into what increases you and what decreases you, into good and evil, into the transcendental God and what he discards. But why should God feel the affects the way we do and react to them with a will? If there is a God, he is a Spinozist, and he is all things and in all things and not outside of these things positioning them to and fro as per arbitrary willing. That's how we do things. If God is the same way, if he is a petty and desirous entity limited by how things make him feel as an agent, we ought to embrace atheism instead of worshiping a glorified security guard.

>>21770547
this

>>21772153

>>21770360
I think there are four possible approaches:
>Pluralist
E.g. Leibniz and Thomists
While this approach may accept classical metaphysics, it isn't compatible with Spinoza's monism, and in turn postulates that more than one substance exist. This could be the case if proposition 5 from the first part is rejected i.e. it's impossible for two substances to share an attribute. If it's proven that a substance can share an attribute with another one, then Spinoza's argument for substance monism falls.
>Anti-metaphysical
E.g. Kant and Hume
It rejects the assumptions Spinoza does in his metaphysics or metaphysics as a whole.
>Idealist
E.g. Hegel and Schelling
This approach doesn't fully reject Spinoza, but rather expands on it. While Spinoza may have been right in some aspects, his metaphysics didn't take into consideration that the Absolute is not a mere object, but also a subject. This lead to his difficulties explaining the articulation between the indeterminate and the determinate (natura naturans and natura naturata); his rejection of freedom and possibility/contingency; and the missing; and his account of the Absolute as pure being with no actual becoming. On the other hand, his geometrical method is insufficient by not being reflexive, it doesn't consider the negation of each proposition nor the subject that is using the method.
>Irrationalist
E.g. Schopenhauer and Kierkegaard
This one rejects the Principle of Sufficient Reason and thereby the Ethics axioms 1 and 2.


In my particular case, as someone who has been obsessed with Spinoza, I've been inclined to idealism. Pluralism can't be accepted, since it would imply that two different substances can possibly produce the same attribute. But the same can only be produced in virtue of a common reason, and since substances can only be conceived in themselves, it follows that they cannot produce the same attribute. Idealism avoids most the problems that come with Spinoza's monism while not abandoning metaphysics. Hence, I would also agree with a position that is reflexive upon metaphyics but doesn't deny its possibility. If it were to be denied, knowledge in general wouldn't have a grounding, falling into arbitrariness or even relativism. The same could be applied to irrationalism, although a consequent irrationalist doesn't care about knowledge. The only adequate and satisfactory response to irrationalism would be one that gives a reason for reason itself and totality. This has made me go into a continuous internal dilemma between absolute reason and pure contingency.

>>21770607
Sounds perfectly reasonable to me. It's just redefining the word God to mean something atheistic. Like how I could redefine "fish" to mean "bread", and say I'm a vegetarian because I only eat fish.

>>21773651
there is a very big difference between bog standard materialist atheism and spinoza in part V finding the ultimate happiness of man in the reciprocal love between God and man shorn of any concern for mundane sensual pleasures of worldly ambitions

>>21773657
>very big difference between bog standard materialist atheism and spinoza
No, there isn't. Plenty of atheist materialists are bugmen who shun mundane sensual pleasures. Look at your local university science departments.

>>21770360
going back to Descartes pulled me out of it

>>21773661
>believes in God for culture war purposes
>accuses others of being atheist for believing in a philosophical God rather than an anthropomorphic one
kek

>>21773672
There is no culture war here, the fact is you are an atheist, because you don't believe in a definition of God which is not just an aggregate of things (using the word "God" does not change anything). There is nothing divine about the universe taken as a whole any more than a house taken as a whole, unless you have some totally different reason to show why that might be the case, apart from redefining terms.
>philosophical God
There is no philosophical God. There are only philosophical concepts, and you can give them whatever names you'd like.
>>21773615
>pluralism can't be accepted, since it would imply that two different substances can possibly produce the same attribute. But the same can only be produced in virtue of a common reason, and since substances can only be conceived in themselves, it follows that they cannot produce the same attribute
This is ultimately just Spinoza tending towards the timeless trap of considering Being as genus. Aristotle and Aquinas spent many pages showing why the conception of Being as a universal genus or substance is wrong, despite common sense intuition like Spinoza's arguing the contrary, and still no one seems to care that Being cannot be a genus, because it would need something outside of itself to differentiate itself into species. Which would ipso facto imply that Being is not the highest genus, and there is something which "is" (which partakes of Being), which does not partake of Being. Even Plato alludes to it in his Sophist dialogue when he shows that Being cannot be sameness, difference, becoming, or become, or any of the other categories, because Being is not a category, therefore Being is not a substance, therefore being is not "infinite essence", which implies that Spinoza is wrong from the very beginning. How many mistakes in philosophy are perpetuated because of this confusion are likely uncountable.
>since it would imply that two different substances can possibly produce the same attribute.
It wouldn't, because different substances have one and the same essence, and therefore one and the same attribute. You're confusing matter with essence, matter is what causes the numerical multiplication of substances, whereas essence (the attributes) always remains one, unitary, behind multiplicity. All non-essential individuality is caused essentially by matter.
>and since substances can only be conceived in themselves, it follows that they cannot produce the same attribute
Since essence consists of attributes which are common to other kinds, but also attributes which are specific to their kind, it follows that an essence cannot be conceived except through itself. If an essence were to be conceived "through only itself", as Spinoza has it, using the term "substance", it would be a complete nothing, because it would be an undifferentiated pure genus. That is unless Spinoza posits being as the highest genus, which comes back to what I said first of all. It results in a logical absurdity.

>>21773759
>>21773615
Why can't Being be a genus? The following demonstrates why:

1. Being is a genus. (Assumption for reductio)
2. A genus is 'contracted' or specified to a species thereof by a specific difference. To employ the classical example, the genus animal is contracted to the species man by the difference rational. Every man is an animal but not conversely. What distinguishes man from the other animals is rationality.
Therefore (from 1 and 2)
3. If being were a genus, then being would have various species, and a given species S of being would be distinguished from the other species of being T, U, V, etc. by a specific difference that all and only the members of S would possess.
But
4. No genus is included in the specific differences that differentiate the species of the genus in question. For example, animal is not included in the difference rational. By sheer analysis of the concept rational one cannot extract the concept animal. For there is nothing in the concept rational to demand that anything that is rational also be an animal. And, as Aquinas points out, if animal were included in rational, then the genus animal would be included twice in the definition of the species man. That would be like saying: Man is rational and as rational an animal, and an animal. But this is not the case: animal occurs only once in Man is a rational animal.
What is it for one concept to be included in another? A concept C is included in a concept D just in case, necessarily, everything that falls under D falls under C. Thus, unmarried is included in bachelor because every bachelor is unmarried. We could also put this in terms of analytic entailment. C is included in D if and only if D analytically entails C. Thus swan is included in cygnet just in case cygnet analytically entails swan.
Therefore (from 4)
6. If being were a GENUS, then being would NOT be included in every specific difference whereby this putative genus would be divided into species.
But
7. If BEING were a genus, then being would HAVE TO BE included in every specific difference. For being applies to everything inasmuch as everything is. So being would have to be included in each concept: necessarily, if x falls under any concept C, x falls under being, whence it follows that being is included in every specific difference whereby this putative genus would be divided into species.
Therefore (from 6 and 7)
8. If being were a genus, then being would and would not be included in every specific difference.
Therefore (from 8 by RAA)
9. Being is not a genus.
To put the point rather more simply, when we say of a thing that it is a being, or even more simply, that is is, we are not saying anything about what kind of thing it is. We are not saying anything about WHAT it is: we are underscoring that it IS. Being is not a highest quidditative determination. For when we speak of the being (esse) of a being (ens) we are referring to its sheer existence, not its nature or essence or quiddity.

>>21770360
There is no God; but Stoic God. See the universe as clay. God is that which gives shape to this raw clay and puts it in order. The cosmos has an architectural mind.

God did not create the universe and leave it alone like the God of the Deists, but rather God is immanent in the universe and has an active role in it.

>>21772847
Spinozism is just half-assed Hinduism. This is why the Christians above call him Crypto-Atheist. I think you're the one anthropomorphising God in your confusion of his Essential Will with human decision. This goes against the most basic classical theology and isn't just some slight heresy or difference in religious interpretation. I know he was an outcast during his time but frankly I'm surprised he wasn't prosecuted.

>>21773834
Why are you denying that God is a white-bearded old man in the sky? Your belief is very heretic, and philosophical incorrect.

>>21773759
>>21773766
Problem is that for Spinoza God isn't a genus. God, or the one and only substance, is that which is unconditioned. Since limits are restricted to conditioned beings, it follows that substance is beyond limits i.e. infinite. But determination is negation, and what has no limits has no negation, thus substance is undetermined. Considered as natura naturans (god in itself), it isn't yet in the moment of determinacy, determinacy only comes through natura naturata (god for itself). Then we can say that considering a genus is a determinate idea, genuses are from natura naturata, and not natura naturans. This is exactly why Spinoza defines God as 'absolutely infinite' and not just infinite. A genus is infinite in the sense that it encapsulates an infinity of possible beings, but finite in the sense that there are other possible genuses.
The obvious question then would be how is determinacy instantiated if not by an external entity. While substance in itself is universal, it is not universal in a determined way, then how does indeterminacy gives rise to determined universals and particulars? Spinoza's gonna say that through modes and attributes. Natura naturans must follow an infinite number of things in different ways, (under my own interpretation) it would follow that since determinacy is contained within those infinite ways (attributes) and things (modes), attributes and modes necessarily exist.
Absolute idealists retook him and tried to explain how it could be possible the jump between indeterminacy and determinacy. To simplify it, the answer is that the Absolute is not only a substance, but a subject. Indeterminacy constantly posits itself in determinate ways that reveal themselves in the form of spirit. Another one is that Pure Being, since it lacks any determination, it's identical to Nothing. Both are both absolutely the same and the opposite. The movement between sameness and opposition is becoming, which in turn necessarily appears in determinate forms.

>>21770428
/thread

>>21772625
What about gods will as providence though? It seems to me perfectly coherent that an omnipresent, omnipotent, all powerful being's will would be done no matter what. So whats wrong with saying that god has always existed in a state if wu wei or platonic Wisdom where desire does not factor into how his will acts. It seems to me like that would appear to us as natural law and providence.

>>21773759
>It wouldn't, because different substances have one and the same essence, and therefore one and the same attribute. You're confusing matter with essence, matter is what causes the numerical multiplication of substances, whereas essence (the attributes) always remains one, unitary, behind multiplicity. All non-essential individuality is caused essentially by matter.
For Spinoza, in order for two or more substances to interact with one another, they must have an attribute in common. But since no attribute is repeated between multiple substances, it's impossible for a substance to interact with another one. This argument doesn't refer to unity or multiplicity whatsoever.
>it would be an undifferentiated pure genus
That's exactly what substance is for Spinoza. Spinoza's error was to only conceive it as sameness with itself, when it's also opposition with itself as Hegel remarked in the Science of Logic. If it wasn't in an internal opposition, there would be no becoming, only a parmidean One. If unity and multiplicity were to be instantiated by absolutely different entities with no sameness, that would entail both exist by themselves, and if both exist by themselves, then you would have to explain how do both interact. Unity, since it's different to multiplicity, presupposes multiplicity, and since multiplicity is not unity, it presuposses sameness. This is exactly why Hegel's solution is so brilliant, they're both the same and not the same. It avoids the problem monism's problem of differentiation and pluralism/dualism's problem of substance interaction.

>>21770481
No, but what can I learn from a pleb that is not at least 300 IQ points above me

>>21773615
>Schopenhauer
>rejects the Principle of Sufficient Reason
The absolute state of /lit/

>>21774086
An apology, I was too lazy to give a more specific explanation. While he doesn’t reject it, he instead thinks that ‘rationalist’ philosophers have used it wrongly. If I remember correctly, he mentions that Spinoza treats reason the same way as causality, when it’s not the case that every reason is a causal link.

>>21770619
Saying God is Pure Act is meaningless pseudo-intellectual horseshit, merely an autistic semantical abstraction.

>>21773759
>There is nothing divine about the universe taken as a whole
Scratch a priest get a nihilist. Spinoza is based and there is nothing your sickly world-denying ideology can do about it.
>>21773846
>the most basic classical theology
There's no reason to assume this is correct or authoritative. If you are giving God a "will" you are turning him into a magical king to be obeyed, a little human who has concerns and desires and affects upon himself to deal with. This is what Spinoza's God is an overturning of—that God is a petty tyrant who delights in torturing some and rewarding others. Instead God is substance which all things are expressions of. Of the pajeets he is most similar to samkhya but did not have access to it.
>>21774990
You're going to rustle the thomist larpers

>>21773615
Regarding the fourth approach, there is a different way: A full-blown PSR-driven Parmenidean Ascent, in which differentiated truth is denied. Basically, if you reject differentiated truth, then no truthful set of axioms is sufficient to reject another. The emergence of non-Euclidian geometry basically proved this notion, in which one can allow mutually exclusive/contradicting sets of axioms their validity and truthhood (such as that between Euclidian geometry and its counterpart) in a coherent and logical manner.