Ethics

De: Benedict de Spinoza

Narrado por: Antony Ferguson

Benedict de Spinoza's Ethics, first published in 1677, constitutes a major systematic critique of the traditional and religious foundations of philosophical thought. In it, Spinoza follows a logical step-by-step format consisting of definitions, axioms, propositions, proofs, and corollaries to create a comprehensive inquiry into the truth about God, nature, and humans' place within the universe. From these broad metaphysical themes, Spinoza derives what he considered to be the highest principles of religion and society and lays out an ethical system in which reason is the supreme value. A seminal contribution to 17th-century rationalism, Spinoza's Ethics refutes the dualism of René Descartes and provides a bridge between religion and modern-day psychology. This edition is the translation by R. H. M. Elwes.

Public Domain (P)2011 Tantor

Too much not, self evident

Interesting but fraught with all kinds of problems. I wasn't at all sure what his source for his understanding of the nature of God. It seemed overall that the system worked within itself, but on what premise was the whole thing based? On the nature of Man, well, so much has been contradicted by research on the brain, that it was hard to tell, of the remainder, what was actually useful. The structure was based on Euclid, which is great for a subject like Geometry which has so little room for doubt and error, but man is not as clear a subject. I was also quite frustrated that so many things were "self evident" or any other possibility could be written off as ridiculous. In those moments, it felt like a real discussion of why he considered it self evident was required even more. Wouldn't bother taking this on again. Once was enough.

powerful.

i love the entire concept of this book. the author was ahead of his time; very much relevant to modern times and beyond.

Interesting

Loved it. Going to listen again…and again etc …deep. So if you like deep…

I probably need to read commentary alongside the text

I got lost within two minutes. within 5 minutes it felt like absolute gibberish. I advise reading text rather than audiobook as this is not something to let wash over you. Opposite of Descartes in that Descartes attempts to prove something simpler and build up to proving God, Spinoza attempts to prove God and works down. Using Euclidean geometry to prove God exists is a hot take; 'Triangles either exist or not, squares are not circle, therefore God necessarily exists' massive oversimplification, but basically what is said.
Book is divided in five parts, each part builds off previous. I could follow last three parts and only felt confident with last part.

A guide to controlling your own humanity

The capability that Espinoza has to explain concepts like our own existence, our understanding of God, our emotions, the power of a knowledgeable man. Everyone needs to hear about this, this is the importance of philosophy.