Adequate understanding of inadequate ideas: Power and paradox in Spinoza's cognitive therapy

Abstract

Spinoza shared with his contemporaries the conviction that the passions are, on the whole, unruly and destructive. A life of virtue requires that the passions be controlled, if not entirely vanquished, and the preferred means of imposing this control over the passions is via the power of reason. But there was little agreement in the seventeenth century about just what gives reason its strength and how its power can be brought to bear upon the wayward passions.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,221

External links

  • This entry has no external links. Add one.
Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

  • Only published works are available at libraries.

Similar books and articles

Spinoza's account of akrasia.Martin Lin - 2006 - Journal of the History of Philosophy 44 (3):395-414.
Spinoza on Destroying Passions with Reason.Colin Marshall - 2012 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 85 (1):139-160.
Spinoza on power.R. J. McShea - 1969 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 12 (1-4):133 – 143.
The Epistemic Problem of Cartesian Passions.Ron Williston - 2003 - International Philosophical Quarterly 43 (3):309-332.
Spinoza and the dictates of reason.Donald Rutherford - 2008 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 51 (5):485 – 511.
Perfection, power and the passions in Spinoza and Leibniz.Brandon C. Look - 2007 - Revue Roumaine de la Philosophie 51 (1-2):21-38.

Analytics

Added to PP
2009-01-28

Downloads
49 (#286,250)

6 months
1 (#1,028,709)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

J. Thomas Cook
Rollins College

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references