Abstract
One of the most elusive aspects of Spinoza’s idea of science for contemporary readers is his assumption of a continuity between the individual mind and its contents, and the network of systematically interconnected ideas which makes up the totality of scientific knowledge. The individual mind is supposed to reach full self-knowledge through perceiving itself as inserted in the totality of thought; and this, we are told, is what it is for the mind to understand itself as ‘eternal’. What is this perception? And how does it amount to the eternity of the mind?
Citations are to Gebhardt, Carl: 1925, Spinoza Opera, Carl Winters Universitaets-buchhandlung, Heidelberg. Quotations from the Ethics follow the translation of W. H. White and A. S. Stirling, 1899; reprinted in Wild, J. (ed.): 1958, Spinoza Slections, Scribner, New York. Where my translations depart from this version, the Latin is included in parentheses. Quotations from the Short Treatise on God, Man and His Well-Being follow the translation of A. Wolf: 1910, A. C. Black, London.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Donagan, A.: 1973, ‘Spinoza’s Proof of Immortality’, in Grene, M. (ed.): 1973, Spinoza: A Collection of Critical Essays, Anchor Press/Doubleday, New York, pp. 241–258.
Dummett, M.: 1968–69, ‘The Reality of the Past’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 69, reprinted, 1978, in Truth and Other Enigmas, Duckworth, London, pp. 358–374.
Foucher de Careil, L. A.: 1857, Nouvelles Lettres et Opuscules inédits de Leibniz, Auguste Durand, Paris.
Freud, S.: 1966–74, Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works, Hogarth Press and Institute of Psycho-Analysis, London.
Geach, P. T.: 1969, God And The Soul, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London.
Gerhardt, C. I.: 1875–1890, 1960, Die philosophischen Schriften von Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Georg Olms Hildesheim, Berlin.
Harris, Errol: 1971, ‘Spinoza’s Theory of Human Immortality’, The Monist 55, pp. 668–851
reprinted in M. Mandelbaum and E. Freeman (eds.): 1975, Spinoza: Essays in Interpretation, Open Court, La Salle, Illinois.
Hegel, G. W. F.: 1896, Lectures on the History of Philosophy, transl, by E. S. Haldane and F. H. Simson, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London; The Humanities Press, New York.
Jagodinski, I.: 1913, Leibnitiana: Elementa Philosophiae Arcanae De Summa Rerum, Kasan.
Kneale, M.: 1968–69, ‘Eternity and Sempiternity’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 69, 223–38
reprinted in M. Grene (ed.): 1973, Spinoza: A Collection of Critical Essays, Anchor Press/Doubleday, New York, pp. 227–40.
Loemker, L. E.: 1969, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz: Philosophical Papers and Letters, 2nd ed., Reidel, Dordrecht, Holland.
Maimonides, M.: The Guide to the Perplexed, transl. 1881, M. Friedlander, Dover, New York.
McKeon, R. (ed.): 1941, The Basic Works of Aristotle, Random House, New York.
Peirce, C. S.: 1933, Collected Papers, ed. by C. Hartshorne and P. Weiss, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass.
Roth, L.: 1963, Maimonides, Descartes and Spinoza, Russell and Russell, New York.
Santayana, G.: 1910, Introduction to the Ethics, transl, by A. Boyle, Everyman, Dent, London.
Sprigge, T.: 1972, ‘Ideal Immortality’, Southern Journal of Philosophy, Summer, pp. 219–236.
Taylor, A. E.: 1937, ‘Some Incoherencies in Spinozism’, Part II, Mind XLVI, 281–301
reprinted in P. Kashap: 1972, Studies in Spinoza, University of California Press, Berkeley.
Wolfson, H. A.: 1934, rpt. 1958, The Philosophy of Spinoza, Meridian, New York.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1986 D. Reidel Publishing Company
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Lloyd, G. (1986). Spinoza’s Version of the Eternity of the Mind. In: Grene, M., Nails, D. (eds) Spinoza and the Sciences. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol 91. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-4514-2_9
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-4514-2_9
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-010-8511-3
Online ISBN: 978-94-009-4514-2
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive