Aesthetic soul
"It is more difficult to die for the truth and live for the truth." Vendel Ban, a famous German philosopher, was hired to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Spinoza's death. The core and destination of Spinoza's aesthetic thought is "the perfect realm of life", which is the pursuit of the unity of truth, goodness and beauty.
Aesthetic essence
"/kloc-Spinoza, a Dutch materialist philosopher in the 0 th and 7 th centuries, clearly put forward the view that beauty is subjective for the first time in history." Judy's contemporary western aesthetics. The essence of Spinoza's penetrating subjective empiricism aesthetics is that human beings always appreciate beauty from their own perspective, which leads to the uncertainty of beauty, so its aesthetic essence is to completely deny the view that beauty is subjective.
Aesthetic core
The core content of Spinoza's aesthetic ontology is that beauty is in the whole. If you can't stand at the right height, you can't catch a glimpse of the beautiful ocean and enjoy the real aesthetic pleasure. Spinoza believes that aesthetics consistent with the whole nature can be realized through rational intuition.
Aesthetic characteristics
Because Spinoza studied philosophy from the perspective of geometry, she brought the rigor, accuracy and inevitability of philosophy into aesthetics, which made her aesthetics have typical rational beauty and quiet, grand and cold nature.
Personal life
be born
Baruch Spinoza (1632165438+1October 24th-1677 February 2nd1) was born in Amsterdam to a Jewish businessman, who fled from Spain to the Netherlands. His parents make a living by doing import and export trade, and their lives are quite comfortable. Therefore, Spinoza was able to enter the local Jewish god school to study Hebrew, Talmud and medieval Jewish philosophy. He also received Latin training, and it was through Latin that Spinoza came into contact with the works of Descartes and others.
academic
As a result, he gradually broke away from the so-called orthodoxy and was excommunicated for opposing Jewish teachings at 1656. He finally moved out of the Jewish community, grinding glasses for a living and thinking philosophically at the same time. 1670 She moved to The Hague, and Spinoza lived in seclusion from then on. 1673, he obtained the position of professor of philosophy department of Heidelberg University, provided that he did not question the legal religion of the country, which was flatly rejected by Spinoza. Due to long-term irregular diet and malnutrition, his health has deteriorated year by year. 1677, after a fierce struggle with the disease, he fell down and finally fell on the edge of 45 years old.
Philosophical thinking
monism
Materialist world outlook
Philosophical principle
Spinoza, like Descartes, insisted on rationalism in methodology and respected geometric methods. His main work, Principles of Descartes Philosophy and Ethics, was written by writing geometry. He believes that only the knowledge derived from the previous "self-evident definitions and axioms" by rational ability is reliable knowledge, just like geometry. He firmly believes: "All the ideas deduced from the correct ideas in the head are also correct." Therefore, he advocated that on the basis of the concept of truth, other scientific knowledge can be deduced by using the method of geometry. However, Spinoza developed Descartes' geometric method from the perspective of materialism. First of all, he thinks: "Realistic rationality, whether limited or infinite, should only understand the attributes of God and the special state of God, and should not understand other things." In Spinoza's view, the object of cognition is the objective nature, and the fundamental task of cognition is to study the ways to guide people to reach the true knowledge of things. Secondly, he clearly affirmed: "The order and connection of ideas are the same as the order and connection of things." He believes that natural things and natural laws can be recognized, and people can gain an understanding of natural truth. He said: "People have the ability to know many things. The more aspects the body can adapt to, the greater this ability will be." Finally, he admitted: "The concept of truth must conform to its object." In short, in epistemology, Spinoza and Descartes are in the same strain.
Spinoza's Ethics
Ethics is the purpose and destination of Spinoza's philosophy. He believes that the purpose of philosophy is to seek the highest goodness and happiness of mankind. He said: "I aim to make all sciences focus on one goal or an ideal, that is, to reach the highest level of life perfection." Therefore, anything that cannot promote the realization of our scientific goals will be dismissed as useless; In other words, all our actions and thoughts must be focused on achieving this unique goal. "His ethics is based on the bourgeois theory of human nature, emphasizing that' self-preservation' is the driving force for everyone's action and the standard for people to judge good and evil. He said: "the so-called good or evil refers to things that are beneficial to or hinder our existence ... anything that makes us happy or miserable, we call it good or evil." "His ethics is utilitarian. He thinks:" The harder a person works, the more he can seek his own interests or maintain his own existence, the more virtuous he is; "On the contrary, as long as a person ignores his own interests or neglects the maintenance of his own existence, he is really weak and incompetent." But Spinoza thinks that man is a complex style, which includes two aspects: body and mind, and mind is emotional. If people's emotions are dominated by the outside world, it is incorrect to know the outside world. On the other hand, if people's emotions are dominated by reason, then people's understanding of the outside world is certain and correct. So he said, "The so-called goodness refers to what we know is useful to us." "The so-called evil is that we know exactly what prevents us from having any good." It can be seen that Spinoza advocated utilitarian ethics under the guidance of rational principle.
affect
For some time after Spinoza's death, his works continued to be condemned by different religious sects, but were ignored by philosophers and progressive thinkers. By the end of 17, French [HTK] P baylor affirmed that Spinoza's philosophy was an atheistic system in his famous Dictionary of Historical Criticism. Since then, Spinoza's philosophy has been gradually valued. His atheism influenced French combat atheists in the18th century. At the same time, his materialism was also inherited by French materialists, although they had reservations about it. [htk] D. Diderot once called French materialism "neo-Spinozaism" in volume 15 of Encyclopedia. During the German Enlightenment from the end of 18 to the beginning of 19, Spinoza's philosophy passed through G.E. Lessing (1729 ~ 178 1) and J.G. Held (/kloc-0). Held once claimed to be Spinoza. Spinoza's philosophy also greatly inspired German classical philosophy. Fichte and Schelling regard it as the development of their own philosophy. His entity is an important factor in Hegel's philosophical system. [htk] Feuerbach once said that "Spinoza is Moses of modern atheists and materialists". Marx attached great importance to Spinoza's materialistic philosophy, calling his insistence on explaining the world from the world itself the highest honor of modern philosophy, and considered him one of the outstanding representatives of dialectics in the17th century.
main work
Spinoza's greatest work is the Ethics of Geometric Argument, which was not published until Spinoza's death. This book is written by Euclid's geometric method. At the beginning, a set of axioms and various formulas are given, from which propositions, proofs, inferences and explanations are generated. His other important works include Theological Politics, Political Philosophy, Philosophical Principles, Theory of Rational Improvement, On God, Man and His Happiness (etc. The theme of theological politics is biblical criticism and political theory, while the latter only talks about political theory.
Commemorative article
A giant of western thought
Attachment: "The Giant of Western Thought (I): Spinoza" Note: Excerpted from Chapter 4 of A Brief History of Philosophy (China Friendship Publishing Company) Section 1 Historical Background and Life Author: [America] will durant Translation: At the bicentennial of Liang Chun, people began to raise funds to build a full-length portrait for him, and donations came from educated people all over the world. Never has a monument been built on such a broad foundation of love! 1492 Spanish moors left the Iberian Peninsula after Grenada was occupied by Ferdinand, and Spain implemented the policy of expelling pagans. In Spain, Jews began another national migration since the temple was destroyed. These people found a home in generous Holland. One of these people comes from a family in Portugal, and its owner is El Spinoza. 1598, Jews built the first synagogue in Amsterdam. 75 years later, they built the most magnificent church in Europe. At that time, their Christian neighbors were still helping them. URI· Costa, an enthusiastic young man, was influenced by all doubts during the Renaissance, and wrote a paper, slamming his belief in the afterlife. This does not necessarily violate the ancient Jewish teachings, but the Jewish church forced him to deny his views in public, so as not to arouse the resentment of the local Christian church. The way to repent is to let the arrogant young man lie across the door of the hall and let the congregation step over him in turn. URI went home and wrote a suicide note condemning his persecutor, then shot himself. It happened in 1640, when baruch Spinoza, the "greatest Jew" and the greatest philosopher of modern times, was an eight-year-old child and a lovely student among Jews. Baruch Spinoza's father is a well-run businessman, but baruch Spinoza likes to spend time in the synagogue and learn about his religion and history. The elders agreed that he was the new judge: Messiah! He was deeply impressed by Moses' view that God and the universe are the same, and Kreiskas also believed that the physical universe is the form of God. Aviroy believes that eternity has no personality. The more Spinoza read and thought, the more he believed in doubt. His curiosity prompted him to read the works of Christian thinkers about God and human destiny. He began to learn Latin from a Dutch scholar named Fan Dan Ender. His new teacher has a beautiful daughter, and he learned Spinoza's feelings from Latin; Under the temptation of such a beautiful woman, nowadays college students don't have to study Latin hard. But this young girl loves money more than love. She lost interest in Spinoza when another suitor arrived with an expensive gift. There is no doubt that Spinoza became a philosopher at that moment.
Celebrity evaluation
It is not easy to achieve Spinoza's philosophical achievements, nor is it possible to achieve Spinoza's personality. -Hegel
well-known saying
Spinoza said: "Free people seldom think of death; His wisdom is not a meditation on death, but a meditation on life. "