Ethics

By: Benedict de Spinoza

Narrated by: Antony Ferguson

Length: 9 hrs and 6 mins

Publisher's summary

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

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.

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.

Very little about "ethics"

I thought "Ethics" was about ethics. I am 4 hours in, and Spinoza has so far spent most on logical puzzles and philosophy of science.

The Great independant Spinoza

I love his fearlessness.
I love his love of life.
I love his love for his family and humanity.
I love his opening of my mind.

An important historical work

If you could sum up Ethics in three words, what would they be?

Any summary of this work deserves more than three words.

What did you like best about this story?

Spinoza was a true genius, however, the writing style of his time was very dry and drawn out. Antony does as good a job as possible in taking the information and communicating it in a manner that is palatable enough to listen to.

Which scene was your favorite?

There aren't scenes in this book, however, in the beginning I realized Spinoza wasn't talking so much about a deity as he was hypothesizing about energy. This revelation blew my mind in a very positive way.

What’s the most interesting tidbit you’ve picked up from this book?

Spinoza was as smart as so many have claimed that he was, and that's refreshing.

I slept

I literally slept through half of this book. I put it on at nights and set a sleep timer, and I always without fail fell asleep before 15 minutes was up. I'm not sure I can say I really read this book, but I definitely got a lot out of it.

A perfect dissection of the brain

I am very happy to have come across this book because it has all of the characteristic inflection, intonation, and dialectical-lexical phraseology that is trademark of an eternal classic. I highly recommend this book!

Great way to learn a classic text

The Ethics is not the easiest book and being able to listen at .75x really helped me take it in. Good performance.

It's a mixed bag

If you can get past the antiquated speech and the catastrophic propositional logic, he really does make some astute observations about human nature and psychology that still ring true today.

Nicely done

The reading is very nice. Nothing can make up for the author’s odd choice to structure this piece of philosophy like a geometric argument.

The Ethics is an important work in your je history of philosophy. It is worth reading. And the listener will be rewarded by being patient and listening through to the end. The overall effect makes this reader ready to start from the beginning and listen to it again.