Spinoza: Control of Passion

En filosofía es importante conocer las influencias entre los filósofos porque de ello depende tener un conocimiento más completo y preciso de sus propuestas. Ejemplo de esto son las investigaciones sobre los orígenes estoicos de la filosofía spinoziana, que se han incrementado notablemente en las últimas décadas, pero aún hace falta indagar con mayor detalle, autor por autor e idea por idea, qué tipo de estoicismo y qué parte del mismo influyó en el pensador neerlandés. En este artículo examino, a (...) partir sobre todo de las referencias explícitas, la influencia del estoico Séneca en la filosofía de Spinoza, para lo cual reviso, analizo y cotejo diversos pasajes de las obras de ambos pensadores. // Abstract: It is important in philosophy to know the influences between philosophers because of that it depends to have an accurate and more complete knowledge of their proposals. An example of this are the investigations about the stoics origins of Spinoza’s philosophy, which has been increasing in the last decades but it is still necessary to inquire in greater detail, author by author and idea by idea, what kind of stoicism and what part of it influenced the Dutch philosopher. In this paper I examine, particularly from explicit references, the influence of the Stoic Seneca in Spinoza’s philosophy, for which I review, analyze, and compare several passages of both philosophers’ works. (shrink)

Generosity is not best understood as an alliance of forces, necessary for mortal beings with limited time and skills. Sociability as generosity exceeds the realm of need and follows directly from our strength of character [fortitudo] because it expresses a positive power to overcome anti-social passions, such as hatred, envy, and the desire for revenge. Spinoza asserts that generous souls resist and overwhelm hostile forces and debilitating affects with wisdom, foresight, and love. The sociability yielded by generosity, then, is not (...) just a form of cooperation we need to survive and produce leisure for study and contemplation. Generosity is not a mere means but a positive expression of freedom, because it is the activity through which a strong soul (and body) transforms enemies into friends. It is not an expression of lack, but of an acquired power that infuses one’s social milieu with empowering love and joy, creating agreements in nature and power where they did not previously exist. Attention to generosity reveals not only that there are social virtues proper to Spinoza’s understanding of freedom but that freedom itself is, by necessity, social. (shrink)

Genevieve Lloyd argues that when we follow Spinoza in understanding reason as a part of nature, we gain new insights into the human condition. Specifically, we gain a new political insight: we should respond to cultural difference with a pluralist ethos. This is because there is no pure universal reason; human minds find their reason shaped differently by their various embodied social contexts. Furthermore, we can use the resources of the imagination to bring this ethos about. In my response, I (...) offer a friendly challenge to Lloyd's characterisation of the lessons of Spinoza's philosophy. I argue that Lloyd's Spinoza remains excessively unpolitical, even in the moment that he is brought to bear on contemporary politics. An unpluralistic attitude may well be rationally inferior, but is it really explained by insufficient or inappropriate imagination? To the contrary, a properly Spinozist account of reason must include an account of the concrete determinants of reason's imperfect realisation in the world. In Spinoza's own oeuvre, this is carried out through an ever-increasing–and ever more sociological–interest in the political structures within which individual reason flourishes or withers. (shrink)

The claim of this paper is to present Spinoza’s view on self-esteem and positive reciprocity, which replaces the human being in a monistic psycho-dynamical affective framework, instead of a dualistic pedestal above nature. Without naturalising the human being in an eliminative materialistic view as many recent neuro-scientific conceptions of the mind do, Spinoza finds an important entry point in a panpsychist and holistic perspective, presenting the complexity of the human being, which is not reducible to the psycho-physiological conditions of life. (...) From a panpsychist point of view, qualities and values emerge from the world, in a situation similar to what could be seen in animism, or early childhood psychology, where the original distance between the mind and the exterior thing is reduced ad minima, and both can even interrelate in a confusing manner. Human reality is nevertheless a social reality, it supposes a basis for shared competencies, that we will present as grounded on the one hand of the sustaining character of the essence of the animal-man as will-to-power. Negatively speaking we all share same asocial tendencies and affects. This aspect is not only negative but it is also a will to develop and master the environment, because values have an onto-metaphysical immanent dimension in nature, not because there is an individual bottom-up will to survive, but rather a will to live in harmony with the surrounding world. On the other hand, we shall see that Spinoza understood and described perfectly the power of the mind over the power of the affects, as a co-constituting dimension, which is alienating natural dependencies, leaving an inner space for the objectification of ethical values, not related to mere compensation mechanisms. (shrink)

In this paper, I offer an argument for cultivating cheerfulness as a remedy to sadness and other emotions, which, in turn, can provide some relief to certain cases of depression. My thesis has two tasks: first, to establish the link between cheerfulness and sadness, and second, to establish the link between sadness and depression. In the course of accomplishing the first task, I show that a remedy of cultivating cheerfulness to counter sadness is supported by philosophers as diverse as Thomas (...) Aquinas, Baruch Spinoza, and David Hume in their writings on the passions. I also show that my argument can generalize to promote the cultivation of other emotions. In the course of accomplishing the second task, I consider different models of depression and how the emotions are related to depression. The purpose of this paper is to offer conceptual, philosophical support that is consistent with the most current empirical data on depression. (shrink)

This work examines Michel Foucault’s critique of the present, through his analysis of our hidden but still active historical legacies. His works from the Eighties are the beginning of what he called a “genealogy of the desiring subject,” in which he shows that practices such as confession—in its juridical, psychological, and religious forms—have largely dictated how we think about our ethical selves. This constrains our notions of ethics to legalistic forbidden/required dichotomies, and requires that we engage in a hermeneutics of (...) the self which consistently fails to discover its imagined authentic self, or to find the happiness and freedom promised by contemporary ethics. In order to think the modern self in different terms, Foucault’s later works analyzed Classical and Hellenistic ethical sources, emphasizing their distance from today. He hoped doing so would allow us to rethink our current assumptions about ethical matters, the truth of oneself, and the relation to others. While Foucault’s genealogical descriptions critically diagnosed contemporary ills such as these, he did not prescribe a cure, preferring to let his readers experiment with new practices of their own design. This work attempts such an experiment, supplying concrete solutions to our ethical ills, in order to help us improve, as well as understand, our ethical selves. To that end, this work demonstrates that a form of subjectivity based on Benedict Spinoza’s ethical and political works avoids the pitfalls of modern ethics as diagnosed by Foucault. Additionally, the practices of the self found in Spinoza can be used to directly counter and displace each central element of “desiring subjectivity,” and thus supplies the kind of effective positive move which should follow after genealogical critique. (shrink)