Here's an interesting piece by Spinoza scholar Steven Nadler about the importance of Spinoza in today's world.
https://aeon.co/essays/at-a-time-of-zealotry-spinoza-matters-more-than-ever
More than any other philosopher of his time (or most since), Spinoza's is a philosophy concerned from beginning to end with the question of freedom. His analyses of the mechanisms by which people can be compelled to 'fight for their servitude as if for salvation...' are no less relevant today than they were in 17th century Europe. This servitude assumes myriad forms - superstition, ignorance, nationalism, indifference, racism, sexism, religious prejudice, cisgender normativity, resentment, and fear of every stripe. His work from beginning to end concerns the human liberation from the sway of the 'sad passions,' in the direction of becoming truly 'active' individuals. Little wonder that philosophers as politically radical as Deleuze and Guattari would say of Spinoza's Ethics that it is 'the great book of the BwO [Body without organs]' (A Thousand Plateaus, p. 153).
https://aeon.co/essays/at-a-time-of-zealotry-spinoza-matters-more-than-ever
More than any other philosopher of his time (or most since), Spinoza's is a philosophy concerned from beginning to end with the question of freedom. His analyses of the mechanisms by which people can be compelled to 'fight for their servitude as if for salvation...' are no less relevant today than they were in 17th century Europe. This servitude assumes myriad forms - superstition, ignorance, nationalism, indifference, racism, sexism, religious prejudice, cisgender normativity, resentment, and fear of every stripe. His work from beginning to end concerns the human liberation from the sway of the 'sad passions,' in the direction of becoming truly 'active' individuals. Little wonder that philosophers as politically radical as Deleuze and Guattari would say of Spinoza's Ethics that it is 'the great book of the BwO [Body without organs]' (A Thousand Plateaus, p. 153).
RSS Feed