The Metaphysics of Spinoza | A World of Substance (and Attributes and Modes)
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- čas přidán 5. 06. 2024
- Baruch Spinoza is one of Western philosophy’s most lauded geniuses. But how many know what he actually espoused? In this vid we’ll be exploring Spinoza’s philosophy, beginning with a brief biographical sketch, a word on his legacy and methodology, followed by an introductory overview of the heart of his philosophy, his metaphysics. Exploring the Structure of Realty According to Baruch Spinoza.
00:00 Intro
03:50 Biography
08:18 Legacy
09:52 Methodology
15:22 Metaphysics
17:23 Substance
19:18 Attributes
27:24 Modes
32:12 Monism
33:37 Recap
34:11 Coming up
This vid was made in collaboration with Justin Sledge @TheEsotericaChannel check out his accompanying video: Spinoza, Rationalist Atheist or Mystical Pantheist? • Spinoza - Rationalist ...
Check out my convo with Justin on Logic and Mysticism: • Is Mysticism Rational?...
Check out our other Spinoza vids:
The Riddle of Spinoza's God: • The Riddle of Spinoza'...
Spinoza's Secret for a Blessed Life: • Spinoza’s Secret for a...
The Case for Spinoza’s Mysticism: • The Case for Spinoza's...
Did Spinoza Learn Kabbalah: • Did Spinoza Know Kabba...
Spinoza, Atheist or Kabbalist: • Spinoza - Atheist or K...
SoU Spinoza Playlist: • Baruch Spinoza
SoU Pantheism Series: • Pantheism
Some Recommended Readings:
• Allison, Henry, 1987. Benedict de Spinoza: An Introduction, New Haven: Yale University Press.
• Bennett, Jonathan, 1984. A Study of Spinoza’s Ethics, Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing.
• Curley, Edwin, 1969. Spinoza’s Metaphysics: An Essay in Interpretation, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• Della Rocca, Michael, 2008. Spinoza, London and New York: Routledge.
• Donagan, Alan, 1988. Spinoza, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Nadler, Steven, 1999 [2018]. Spinoza: A Life, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press; 2nd edition, 2018.
• Nadler, Steven, 2006. Spinoza’s Ethics: An Introduction, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Nadler, Steven, 2011. A Book Forged in Hell: Spinoza’s Scandalous Treatise and the Birth of the Secular Age, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
• Wolfson, Harry, 1934. The Philosophy of Spinoza, 2 vols., Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• Yovel, Yirmiyahu, 1989. Spinoza and Other Heretics, 2 vols., Princeton: Princeton University Press.
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#Spinoza
#Philosophy
#Metaphysics
So happy to have worked together on this, Zevi. I really appreciate your content and approach and it's so lovely to be able to share this digital space with you!
Thank you Justin. That’s very kind of you to say. I’m a sold fanboy of your content and style as well. Looking forward to more good times together. Shabbat Shalom 😘
Esoterica, nice use of the "tzak" glyph 😉
Uvva uvva
Curious to find you two teachers on the web. 🤘I’m Jason Jaramillo, MD. I work in central Brooklyn (Boro Park, Midwood) many of my colleagues and patients are Orthodox Jews. I finished my medical training at a hospital called Maimonides Medical Center 😅
I wish I could ingratiate myself with a reformed community just to help me up to date on certain cultural norms… happy Purim
ps my dog is named Spinoza
“I do not know how to teach philosophy without becoming a disturber of the peace.”
Spinoza
Thank you for your excellent podcast, giving us an overview of the importance of Spinoza's philosophy. As a student of Spinoza's philosophy, I have studied Spinoza's Ethics extensively, and I believe to really understand Spinoza, you must live his ideas. I have more than a theoretical concept. After 40 years of work, I now teach, mentor, and coach those who want to live, understand, and love as Spinoza did.
In these times, I can't of a more worthwhile endeavor than to bring to anyone that desires a clear unprejudiced account of history's great thinkers. Thanks much!
Indeed. Thank you Robert. It's an honour.
Better and more fun than any of the graduate seminars I took a hundred years ago. Now 100 years older and anxious and depressed your videos make me look forward to starting my day each morning. Many thanks!
Aw Esther, I’m so glad to hear that. Thank you for the kind feedback. We’re in this together with you.
Love,
Zevi
Our boy really just pulled a “it’s the friends we made along the way” ❤
I admit I tried to watch this at 1.25x, but even that was too bold. Such richness! Thank you very much!
Haha thank you so much brother. I’m so glad you liked it.
Caramba, o criador do Estranha História!!!
Zevi, your love and enthusiasm for the life and thought of Spinoza is both impressive and contagious. The quality of the video and your clear and precise verbal style greatly aid the subject matter. I've been reading and thinking about Spinoza's philosophy since the early 1960s. He has impressed me like no other thinker, neither ancient nor modern.
Thank you Tony. I’m so glad it comes across and honored to be able to share this great human.
This is one of the best explanation of Spinozas Ethics, I've read the ethics 1 time and I am in my second lecture and this helped a lot.
You’re most welcome. I’m glad it was helpful 🙏🏼
Great presentation. Thank you.
You’re most welcome.
Keep them coming...enlighten all of us. Where the madman sinks and drowns, the mystic floats and swims. - AO -
Well said Asterox.
An example of infinite modes which Spinoza gave to his fans at the time in a letter when asked, he stated an example for the extension attribute is "motion and rest" for example, and "the face/phase of the whole universe" as an example of the thought attribute
With stunning efficiency, you have stitch together, my rudimentary, understanding of decartes, quantum physics, the upanishads and Spinoza. Superb job. Thanks so much.
You’re most welcome. Thank you for joining us.
I liked the comparison to matter and energy. I haven't heard that before. Spinoza's incredible psychological insights were a tremendous eye-opener for me. 'No hope unmingled with fear, and no fear unmingled with hope'. I have always taken his thought-extension parallelism to be somewhat similar. 'No body without thought, and no thought without body'. It's quite logical to conclude that it's impossible for a body to live without a thought, or for a thought to live without a body.
Thank you. Truly incredible stuff. Thank you for adding that 🙏🏼
Stellar presentation. I'm so glad I discovered this channel!
Thank you Mark. Glad you found us ;)
Was so confused when reading Ethics, this cleared everything up perfectly. You did an outstanding job at making his content easily digestible. Super interesting video and I'm looking forward to watching more!
You’re most welcome friend. Glad I could be of assistance. Welcome to the channel 🙏🏼
I could not get through the Ethics without Jarrett's Spinoza, A Guide for the Perplexed (ha ha). I tried Aquinas years ago and found the same difficulties. But Spinoza did not put my teeth on edge.His philosophy comes from personal experience to abstraction to integration, psychological to or mystical (what can be be the difference?).
Hey, don't mock us old guys with tweed jackets and tortoise be shell glasses. Ageism, dude!
Another great video. Thank you! I appreciate you 🙏
Thank you so much Francis. We appreciate you 🙏🏼
My studies in physics and experiences on DMT have lead for me to believe Spinoza is correct.
My friend! I believe you shall find the teachings of mystics like Meister Eckhart to be interesting as well! (Although I myself am not wholly familiar with his works)
My studies in physics and experiences on mushrooms have led me to believe Spinoza is correct. Also, that he is a panentheist rather than a pantheist, and that he correctly anticipates quantum mechanics (but simply lacked the vocabulary to explain to his contemporaries that the "attributes" or "modes" of the Creator are akin to quarks such as "beauty" and "charm" and "strange" and bosons, leptons, muons, etc).
We talked about Spinoza with our secular scientist pal recently... cracking up about more synchronicity with your content brother
That’s too good. I’ll have to see that convo. Who was it with?
Great video. Spinoza is always enjoyable to hear about.
Really well put together. I look up to you and your clear way of speaking!👍👍👍
Thank you. I appreciate that. Thank you for joining us.
There is no philosopher which caused me as much joy as he did
Hello and thanks for your efforts! I wanted to say that many of his ideas were already established by Mullah Sadra some 150 years back. Seek out primacy of existence, unity of being, and "Existential motion". Cheers.
Always thankful for your content 🙏.
You’re most welcome. Thank you 🙏🏼
Can't wait to get done with work and watch!
Amazing video. Thanks for sharing.
You’re most welcome. Thank you.
WOW !!! Thank you very much for a very nice, comfortable, interesting lecture!!!
S.A.M. Substance, Attributes & Mode (modus operandi;) Uncle Sam came to mind and then you mentioned the Founding Fathers! ❤
I really enjoyed this video,,God bless your week ahead.
What an excellent and helpful introduction to Spinoza's metaphysical foundation! I'm slowly making my way through the Ethics, and this helps bring much clarity to understanding Spinoza's thought. Thank you!
You’re most welcome. Glad we could be of assistance 🙏🏼
Great presentation with enjoyable humor. I laughed out loud several times. :)
you're going to be the saviour I needed for my exam! thanks :)
The chair part, by the way, really got me laughing. You are quite a character, mister! (In the best imaginable sense!)
Haha I’m glad. I wish i could understand Portuguese (?) to watch your content. You channel looks really great.
Wow, Zevi. I am floored by how excellent and beautiful this video is. You did a great job breaking down the core concepts in Book one of the Ethics. But I also liked the first part where you described Spinoza's life and works. You love Spinoza, and it shows. I love Spinoza too, and like you, I am impressed with the sagely life that he lived.
In regards to the one part: I don't think Spinoza's metaphysics is "more fit for consumption by machines than humans." Though, I guess I see where people who advance this criticism are coming from. I would say in response to this that Spinoza is profoundly concerned with the human condition... our bondage to certain emotions. As Spinoza sees it, understanding his philosophy has the potential to free us from this bondage. So in that sense, it is made precisely for human consumption.
Can't wait for more of this.
Thank you so much Hal ☺️ That’s very kind. I love Spinoza and I’m glad it show. I agree with your reading %100 and i hope to bring out more of that as his mini-series goes on 🙏🏼
8
What i enjoy about this is the use of rhetoric to celebrate the lack if rheroric in Spinoza
;)
SO happy I accidently came across him. Learning so much about him.
You might just be related to him 😏
Great channel, good work here
Thank you James 🙏🏼
Thank you for presenting. Spinoza could be very valuable to society. He had a good understanding of peace.
love this so much.
Yay. Thank you :)
Great, thank you!
You’re welcome. Thank you Noah.
Another great Spinozian video, thanks again.
You’re most welcome. Thank you
I can see why Charles Hartshorne said that Spinoza was a pure Pantheist when people suggested that he was a Panentheist but a bit of a grey area as the single reality seems to have generated itself very similar to the One of Plotinus.therefore at some point,as much as words are meaningful to describe no thing, something must have been outside of reality but a thing with no frame of reference.modern Pantheists generally tend to see the universe as oscillating whereas modern Panentheists tend to see the universe having a begining but the thing that caused the beginning is without space and time.loved your rather lyrical waves in the ocean analogy and I suspect that is where the answer lies to such debates as to what happens upon death.
This is a great piece. 🖖
Thank you
@@SeekersofUnity thank YOU - subscribed. ✌️
Welcome 🙏🏼
"I do not know much my friend ,
but totally enjoyed your metaphysics teaching of Spinoza .......
.THANK YOU
You’re most welcome Andrew. Glad you enjoyed it.
I think I just fell in love! Not sure if I fell in love with Spinoza when I fell in love with Zevi or the other way round!
Einstein's observations are very interesting and relevant, in my opinion.
I have started to look into Spinoza's works! Very interesting. I believe that religions serve an important role of preventing flattening out reality into a too simplistic monism view, but that monism is the correct fundamental view of reality. Maybe similar to the Word in the Bible (John 1), Ein Sof in the Kabbalah, Brahman in Hinduism and dependent origination in Buddhism. It's all one interconnected wholeness! A unity.
Thank you for helping me understand me
You’re most welcome.
hi , thankyou , really interesting.
Thank you so much watching. Subscribe, Like and Share so we can make more 🙏 Check out Justin's collab vid here: Spinoza, Rationalist Atheist or Mystical Pantheist? czcams.com/video/6Tg03chJpZ4/video.html
Nice work I have just recently come across yourself and Justin and am thoroughly enjoying your work.
Very good.
Baruch HaShem love both of theses channels
Cool video man. Dont worry about impostor syndrome, this was my first impression of you and I'm subbing as I type lol
Thank you Gali. Thank you for joining the Seekers project, we’re having so much fun exploring these epic themes and glad to have you join the ride. Welcome 🙏🏼
Wow, super happy I found this channel! So, if I’m understanding correctly: Substance = That Which Is; Attributes = That Which Perceive of That Which Is; and Modes = The Result of The Perception of That Which Is. Did I get that right?
Seems like Spinoza’s ideas have stood the test of time reasonably well. I’d like to see an exposition about the interplay between his ideas and Planck’s notion that consciousness is a fundamental force of nature. PLMK if you know of such a review!
Glad you found us. Yes. I think that’s a tidy description you’ve put forth. Thank you. Welcome to the channel 🙏🏼
@@SeekersofUnity Great! Thanks for the reply.
Love love love
😍
We modern peripatetics may live in the wake of Nietzsche and Freud, but all of us walk in the shadow of Spinoza...
Aesthetics is in my opinion something missing in philosophy. I enjoyed your contribution and exposition with prose. Delightful…
Thank you Rob. Couldn’t agree with you more. Philosophy needs beauty and poetry no less than any other art. Yours…
thank you
You’re most welcome 🙏🏼
Who defines what constitutes the worthiness of a life one leads?
Spinoza's metaphysics sounds remarkably similar to that of a contemporary thinker: Bernardo Kastrup.
Thank you for this video! Spinoza is fascinating!
My only complaint about his philosophy is that he says that everything happens by necessity but necessity for the purpose of what? Since there’s no ultimate goal of life or nature in Spinozism why must everything necessarily happen as it does?
You’re most welcome Ethan. Thank you for joining us. Spinoza, as far as i understand him, does not mean it happens for a teleological necessity, an end or ultimate purpose, rather that the machine must run the way it does because there’s just no other option. With everything in place they must unfold a certain way. Kinda like what the Stoics thought. Think of his determinism as past oriented, not future oriented, namely, things must be the way they are because of what proceeded them, all the way back, not because of where they’re heading. Hope that helps 🙏🏼
@@SeekersofUnity Thank you! That does help!
Thank you so much. Can you answer me a question?
How can we properly adapt studying lifes of some great people for ourselfs...?
Sorry for my english.
Sorry. I’m not sure i understand the question.
On Harold Bloom...did you say / actually mean "notorious"? as in famous/infamous for negative reasons?
pardon the extreme reductionism, kabbalah appears to me to be a neural network to train ones mind to balance left right brain traits and the relationships between emotions and actions to achieve the keter like pre-sociology psychiatry. By identification of the modes probable relations are found similar to Stephen wolframs theory (of everyting) which I guess a Spinozaesque mind body duality of kabbalah wolfram.
That’s a fascinating hypothesis. I can see you’ve packed a lot of thought into that one small paragraph.
@@SeekersofUnity entirely the opposite. Instant spark connecting possible expressions and blurred for all to critique. I hold little value in these but intriguing thoughts to ponder on and I like blurring them to see what other people say and possibly see how search algorithms are impacted. Great content I look forward to more
Fascinating. Thank you 🙏🏼
Hi, Whats the best english translation of Spinoza?
Spinoza was a Monotheist but majority fail to understand Sufistic chants
Do you like Imanuel Kant's metaphysics?
I don’t know them well enough. But I think the mystical (i.e. unitive) minded philosophers might take umbrage with his belief in the complete inaccessible of the Noumenon, the Ding an sich. Take Schopenhauer for example who posits that whatever the Noumenous is, (in his case it’s “the Will”) must, by definition also be “within” in each of us, and we can therefore know the Noumenous in knowing ourselves, for it is what we are. Not that much unlike mystically minded theologians who will posit that the core of being “God,” “Braman” etc. is “within” us too, called soul, atman, etc. and therefore we can know true being, for we are truly true being.
Would Spinoza be referring to the Ether as the unifying substance?
Hmm i don’t think so. I think Substance is something more fundamental/basic/ontologically prior for him.
What about Titus Lucretius Carus? I am not a philosopher, but do think that monism is influenced by him.
Supposedly, when asked if he believed in god, Einstein answered, “I believe in Spinoza's God, who reveals himself in the lawful harmony of all that exists, but not in a God who concerns himself with the fate and the doings of mankind.”
Considering time and space are both being created ex-nihilu, geometry itself is a created entity, not an infinite boundary.
הגעתי אליך במקרה כשחיפשתי סרטונים על ג'ורדנו ברונו .. ממשיך כאן .. ומכאן .. אוסף נפלא של הרצאות .. תודה רבה לך .. נ.ב. האם תספר גם על הרמב"ם .. או שפיספסתי משהו?
Thanks for coming by. Glad you're enjoying it. We've touched on Rambam briefly in our classes on Jewish Pantheism but we hope to come back and dedicate more time just to him. Welcome to the channel.
@@SeekersofUnity
Thanks enjoining and learning
but how does finite modes comes in existence. how can infinite produce finite
AMAZING.. Thank you..
You’re most welcome 🙏🏼
Recently saw Rav Kook call Spinoza a "spiritual catastrophe"
.... I will be happy to discuss this online with you guys. I'm not hating on Spinoza or anyone, but I take as a matter of fact that his philosophy was a disaster. Trying to find the root cause.
What book can I get to understand Reb Baruch from a chabad perspective
That’s a great question. I don’t know if such a book has been written.
Substance is by definition a composition of smaller substances. How something relates to itself is called essence. Not all substances are an essence. Also, where is consideration for Time? Again seems like basic axiom is that the world is Kadmon not Mechudash. I think I get it now. Substance Plunosium is maybe substance of Yuli, Spinoza should have known better. Wonder if he did it on purpose?
My guess is the root cause of failure of this system are the axioms. Looking forward to learning what those are...
23:46
What does that actually mean?
I almost didn't watch this, taking "metaphysics" too literally, when this is broader than I feared. The terrible YuckTub interface cuts off the title too soon after that word, on the Smart TV.
Very much enjoying the presentation. Must take issue, however, with the assertion ~20:30 that we can't take Spinoza's approach to attributes seriously, because he was relating his philosophy to 17th C math and physics. Poppycock. There's absolutely nothing the laureates at CERN have accomplished with their billion$ upon billion$ of public funding except gaze deeper and deeper into their collective navels. Spinoza correctly anticipated quantum theory, despite the relative idiocy of his contemporaries.
Just as the Tao demonstrates that ultimately everything is One and all yin/yang apparent polarities are simply illusory, dichotomies, so too does quantum theory dictate that the need for a distinction and definitive definition for what is a particle and what is a wave (mind/matter, matter/energy, body/soul, life/death, etc) is a function not of the thing itself ("Ding an sich") but rather a function of human consciousness, curiosity, and need for categorization. After all, consciousness appears to cause collapse of the wave function. Explain *that* with your infinitesimal "G0d particle," logical positivists.
Share: Did I see you fingers vibrate in your video? Listen to Talking Heads ‘Radiohead’. 🎉
Take it as a compliment that I feel compelled to correct your misuse of the plural, phenomena, when you are indicating a singular, ergo phenomenon.
Your overall discourse is performed well enough that this repeated error stands out.
I thought this video had millions of views…whyy
Give it a share and we’ll get it there ;)
Sorry to say that
But this bideo not only explain Spinoz
But it even makes it more complicated
Instead of bambarding the listeners with abstract words with a rather high pace, without any pauze and pictorial explanation
I would rather take my time and try to find correct words to concisely explain what i mean.
As a reference I would like to mention Dr. Leonard Peikhof. He explains philosophy the best way
🙏🏼
"Excavating your nose", lol..... There.... all this rich brain-stretching content, and I choose to comment on the eloquent way you suggest a man picks his nose.... man, I have a lot of growing to do.... *sigh* "The nose, the picking, and the picker".... ** Plato approves this message ** ....
Thank you for your work, but it seems your delivery seems to focus on, what we call “talking like the ancients” bring your methods of communication up to date please. Thank you
Thank you for the pointer 🙏🏼
That's not love, that's horniness....
"but the subjective experience of love is expressed in thought, is, (i've read) a very beautiful experience" !!!! awwwwww!!!!! 😢
time to stop reading and start finding you a nice life-partner. Books are great, but poetry is no replacement for the real thing, lemme tell ya. Even though I'll definitely miss your videos :(
Thank you Vrixton. This is the sweetest message I’ve read in a while. Thank you ☺️
@@SeekersofUnity find yourself a nice Rumi lover, buddy
According to people who have NDEs, Spinoza got it right... almost. I can do without the Islamophobia.
Do you ever feel like a plastic bag
Drifting through the wind, wanting to start again?
Do you ever feel, feel so paper thin
Like a house of cards, one blow from cavin' in?
Do you ever feel already buried deep?
Six feet under screams, but no one seems to hear a thing
Do you know that there's still a chance for you?
'Cause there's a spark in you
You just gotta ignite the light
And let it shine
Just own the night
Like the Fourth of July
'Cause baby, you're a firework
Come on, show 'em what you're worth
Make 'em go, "Oh, oh, oh"
As you shoot across the sky
Baby, you're a firework
Come on, let your colors burst
Make 'em go, "Oh, oh, oh"
You're gonna leave 'em all in awe, awe, awe
You don't have to feel like a waste of space
You're original, cannot be replaced
If you only knew what the future holds
After a hurricane comes a rainbow
Maybe a reason why all the doors are closed
So you could open one that leads you to the perfect road
Like a lightning bolt, your heart will glow
And when it's time, you'll know
You just gotta ignite the light
And let it shine
Just own the night
Like the Fourth of July
'Cause baby, you're a firework
Come on, show 'em what you're worth
Make 'em go, "Oh, oh, oh"
As you shoot across the sky
Baby, you're a firework
Come on, let your colors burst
Make 'em go, "Oh, oh, oh"
You're gonna leave 'em all in awe, awe, awe
Boom, boom, boom
Even brighter than the moon, moon, moon
It's always been inside of you, you, you
And now it's time to let it through
'Cause baby, you're a firework
Come on, show 'em what you're worth
Make 'em go, "Oh, oh, oh"
As you shoot across the sky
Baby, you're a firework
Come on, let your colors burst
Make 'em go, "Oh, oh, oh"
You're gonna leave 'em all in awe, awe, awe
Boom, boom, boom
Even brighter than the moon, moon, moon
Boom, boom, boom
Even brighter than the moon, moon, moon
What is this? This is the simple version. L. O. L
You look like the reincarnation of Spinoza lol
What a delightful compliment. Thank you 🙏🏼
Do u really think you can non stop explain Spinoza basic meanings without taking a breathe so one can absorb what u just explained
Is my delivery too fast?
Ll
He was NOT a Jew, not a practicing one at least. Why wear a kaeppi? I admire Spinoza btw.
Car your arms
Park them?