In this paper I clarify a major affinity between Nietzsche and Spinoza that has been neglected in the literature—but that Nietzsche was aware of—namely a tendency to what I call etiology. Etiologies provide second- order explanations of some opponents’ first-order views, but not in order to decide first-order matters. The example I take up here is Nietzsche’s and Spinoza’s rejections of free will—and especially their etiologies concerning how we wrongly come to think that we may (...) boast of such a capacity. In working through the former (i.e., their rejections of free will) in order to make my central metaphilosophical point regarding the latter (i.e., their accounts of why we generally affirm that we have free will), I shed important new light on Nietzsche’s relation to Spinoza. I also further our understanding of what role such second-order accounts play within each of their larger projects on their own terms. (shrink)

Friedrich Nietzsche was Less Well-Read in the history of philosophy than were many of his peers in the pantheon, whether Hegel before him or Heidegger after, but he was not for that reason any less hesitant to pronounce judgment on the worth of the other great philosophers: Plato was “boring”; Descartes was “superficial”; Hobbes, Hume, and Locke signify “a debasement and lowering of the concept of ‘philosophy’ for more than a century”; Kant was an “idiot” and a “catastrophic spider,” (...) etc.1 Against this overarching trend of negativity, his uncharacteristically positive response to one thinker, a thinker who initially appears to us as quite different from him, is all the more surprising. In the summer of .. (shrink)

This paper explores similarities between the sacrilegious revaluations Nietzsche and Spinoza undertook with regards to Christianity and Judaism respectively. In both cases, these revaluations involve a devaluation of an ancestral religious tradition, followed by the infusion of alternative values posited through forms of secular salvation linked to immanent conceptions of eternity. Given the importance of the structural and phenomenological similarities the paper analyses, it is argued that if Nietzsche thought of himself as the Anti-Christ, there is a (...) convincing case to think of Spinoza as the Anti-Moses. And because both the Anti-Christ and the Anti-Moses not only devaluated their respective religious traditions, but also suggested forms of beatitude based on a valorizing notion of eternity, their efforts are profoundly religious. Accordingly, Nietzsche and Spinoza are not only arguably the greatest Christian and Jewish heretics, but also the prophets of innovative forms of secular and immanent religiosity. (shrink)

Im dreizehnten Aphorismus von Jenseits von Gut und Böse distanziert sich Nietzshe von Spinozas Begriff der Selbsterhaltung. Hierfür gibt Nietzsche zwei Gründe an: Zum einen hält er den Selbsterhaltungstrieb, als Prinzip genommen, für überflüssig und setzt ihm den Willen zur Macht als fundamentaleres, die Selbsterhaltung bereits in sich begriefendes Prinzip entgegen. Zum anderen sei besagter Trieb zudem noch eine "Inconsequenz", sofern Spinozas antiteleologisches System durch den teleologischen Gedanken der Selbsterhaltung unterminiert werde. Die Abhandlung macht Adolf Trendelenburgs Aufsatz Ueber (...) class='Hi'>Spinoza's Grundgedanken und dessen Erfolg als mutmaßliche Quelle für Nietzsches Diktum "Inconsequenz Spinoza's" ausfinding und umreißt kurz Trendelenburgs diesbezügliche Argumentation. Im Anschluss daran wird die Frage diskutiert, ob Nietzsche's Kritik an Spinoza ihre berechtigung hat, oder ob sie selbst inkonsequent ist.In the thirteenth aphorism of Beyond Good and Evil Nietzsche refuses Spinoza's concept of self-preservation. Nietzsche gives two reasons: First, he considers self-preservation a superfluous principle while the will to power is a more fundamental one. Secondly, Nietzsche calls the self-preservation an "inconsistency" since it would ruin Spinoza's anti-teleological system by infiltrating it with a teleological concept. The article detects Adolf Trendelburg's treatise Ueber Spinoza's Grundgedanken und desen Erfolog as most likely to be the source of Nietzsche's words "Spinoza's inconsistency" and summarize Trendelenburg's argumentation against Spinoza. Afterwards it is discussed whether Nietzsche's criticism at Spinoza is accurate or inconsistent itself. (shrink)

This chapter considers Nietzsche's and Spinoza's views on freedom – a theme of central interest to both thinkers. It draws from Yonover in order to provide an outline of their rejections of one conception of freedom: freedom of the will. The chapter also considers their positive visions of a very different kind of freedom, which rather consists in self‐determination. Nietzsche's naturalism surely plays a major role in his rejection of freedom of the will, too. Nietzsche and (...) Spinoza praise a comparable kind of freedom characterized especially by the primary elements. Spinoza writes in the first appendix of the Ethics that at least one portion of the foremost “prejudice” to undermine is the idea that God “directs all things to some certain end”. (shrink)

Este artículo propone una interpretación estética de la relación entre los sistemas filosóficos de Spinoza y Nietzsche a partir una base ontológica común. Aunque sea difícil defender una lectura de Spinoza por parte de Nietzsche, si nos dirigimos a la mediación desde el pensamiento indio entre los pilares de sus respectivos sistemas, podremos fundar una relación entre la voluntad de poder y el _conatus _spinozista. El propósito de esta investigación es doble: por un lado, proponer una (...) interpretación estética de la filosofía de Spinoza desde su sistema de los afectos; y, a partir de ahí, apuntar al fundamento afectivo de esta estética desde la voluntad de poder nietzscheana. (shrink)

You were one of the noblest, the most genuine people, who have ever walked this earth. And though both friend and foe know this, I don't think it unwarranted to verbally bear witness to it before your grave. For we know the world, we know Spinoza's fate. For the world could lay shadows around Nietzsche's memory as well. And therefore I conclude with the words: Peace to your ashes! Holy be thy name to all those to come!1The only (...) historical person Peter Gast puts in relation to his much-revered master in these closing words of the funeral oration he delivered in front of Friedrich Nietzsche's open grave in Röcken on August 28, 1900, is Baruch de Spinoza.2 His intentions are clear: Nietzsche is to avoid the fate of .. (shrink)

Against much of the philosophical tradition, Spinoza and Nietzsche defend an understanding of freedom opposed to free will and formulated as an ethical ideal consisting in a transition from a smaller to a greater power of acting. Starting from a shared commitment to necessity and radical immanence, they present freedom as a passage to a greater power of self-determination and self-expression of the body. Nevertheless, the continuities between their power ontologies and their respective commitments to a life of (...) knowledge break down in their discussion of the various possible manifestations of power. I will argue that Nietzsche's distinctive formulation of power as struggle between wills to power enables him to formulate the question of the qualitative dimension of empowerment in a way that is foreign to Spinoza's rational determinism. While acknowledging the profound similarities, I will argue that we must see Nietzsche's discussion of affirmation as the culmination of his disagreement with his predecessor on the topic of freedom and empowerment. (shrink)

En el presente artículo se pretende pensar nuestra época y nuestra suerte, es decir, la Modernidad, a partir de dos de sus más grandes pensadores, a saber: Spinoza y Nietzsche. En tal sentido, se presenta la tesis de la voluntad de poder como la mejor formulación para pensar la metafísica de la Modernidad y, por otro lado, el pensamiento del límite marcado por los afectos como posibilidad para pensarse a sí mismo y a la totalidad.

This paper investigates Nietzsche’s reception of Spinoza in order to develop our understanding of the complex relations between their respective philosophies starting from their shared commitment to ontologies of power. The first three sections of this essay contain a diachronic analysis of Nietzsche’s engagement with Spinoza and a discussion of the major themes in play. The last section consists in an evaluation of Nietzsche’s explicit and implicit criticisms that helps us gain a sense of the (...) coherence running through them, as well of the core similarities and differences between two philosophies steeped in immanence and naturalism. Even if Nietzsche’s criticisms do not always do justice to Spinoza’s thinking, they nevertheless offer invaluable clues to guide our comparative project. (shrink)

Although the literature on Nietzsche is now voluminous one area where there has surprisingly been very little research concerns Nietzsche on the passions. This essay aims to correct this neglect. My focus is on illuminating Nietzsche on the passions in relation to his primary teaching on self-cultivation. To illuminate his position, I focus attention on examining his relation to Stoic teaching on the passions. If for Nietzsche the Christian mind-set involves a disturbing pathological excess of feeling, (...) the Stoic way of living results for him in a petrified of life devoid of movement and growth. After a consideration of his relation to Stoic teaching I then examine his relation to Spinoza on the emotions or affects. Whilst I acknowledge the affinities between the two thinkers and their criticisms of Stoic teaching, I maintain that it is an error to seek to construe Nietzsche and Spinoza as having an identical teaching on the passions. In the final section of the essay, I provide an appreciation of Nietzsche’s recommendation that instead of demonising the passions in the manner of the Christian psyche and its legacy, or extirpating our passions as recommended by the Stoics, we need to learn how to transform them into joys or delights. (shrink)

A primera vista, puede parecer que la obra de Baruch Spinoza tiene poco que ver con los planteos nietzscheanos: nos encontramos frente a un autor abocado centralmente a la Teología, cuya gran tesis ontológica postula una sola sustancia que consta de una infinidad de atributos, estableciéndose de ese modo una identidad entre Dios y Naturaleza que lo ha situado en la tradición como un autor panteístay monádico. Sin embargo, es posible encontrar entre ellos muchísimas similitudes, tanto en su concepción (...) metafísica como en los planteamientos éticos, que para Nietzsche se convierten en estéticos por la reconceptualización que del arte hace este pensador. Tal vez sea posible arriesgar incluso, sin miedo a ir demasiado lejos, que Spinoza constituye el antecedente más cercano al pensamiento nietzscheano. (shrink)

The article aims to explore the roots of Deleuzean body beyond the traditional arguments of the philosophy of the body. In this context, firstly, I discuss the attitude of Cartesian dualism toward the body, and its consequences, which form the beginning of early modern philosophy. At the same time, they reflect the old, traditional views on the body. Those visions describe the body as a corpse in itself. With Spinoza and later Nietzsche the body, and soul/mind dualism is (...) replaced with monism and perspectivism. It is from this perspective that the question of “what can a body do?” is posed. Drawing on the philosophies of Spinoza and Nietzsche, Deleuze describes the body as a vast principle of potentiality. Such a body constantly appears as the dimension of the multiplicity that is self-constructing. Therefore, in this article, while discussing how the attitude toward the concept of the body changed from Descartes to Deleuze on the ontological level, I simultaneously try to demonstrate the capabilities of such a new understanding of the body. (shrink)

Provides a comparative study in the history of modern philosophy focused on Spinoza and Nietzsche's recourse to physiology. Proposes Nietzsche and Spinoza's appeal to physiology as the key to solving fundamental philosophical problems. Taps into the heart of the growing interest in the Spinoza-Nietzsche connection through detailed discussions of substance metaphysics and the ontology of power, as well as their ethical and political positions.

Name der Zeitschrift: Nietzsche-Studien Jahrgang: 46 Heft: 1 Seiten: 28-57.

Afin de clarifier la réalité elle-même, Nietzsche rapporte généalogiquement le « conatus » spinoziste à une volonté de statisme à laquelle il oppose la dynamique expansive de la volonté de puissance. Pourtant, on peut montrer que Nietzsche rejette moins la conservation qu’il ne la réinterprète dans l’ordre d’une grandeur à produire, indissociable du tragique.

Although the differences between Spinoza and Nietzsche are crucial, there are several aspects on which one can trace a relevant set of similarities between the two authors. The refutation of teleology, transcendence and free will, together with the consequent embracement of fatality, the pursuit of joy, and the particular emphasis on affectivity are just a few of the resemblances that can be drawn between Spinoza and Nietzsche. This paper is focused only on the last aspect mentioned (...) above. Both Spinoza and Nietzsche developed an account of immanent pursuit of joy, which can be derived from a particular understanding of affects. The two philosophers tried to create a peculiar bridge between knowledge and affectivity, which meant a significant departure from their previous philosophical tradition, and which gave them an idiosyncratic place in the entire picture of modern thought. (shrink)

Affectivity and Philosophy After Spinoza and Nietzsche investigates a much neglected philosophical connection between two of the most controversial figures in the history of philosophy, namely Benedict Spinoza and Friedrich Nietzsche. It is claimed that these thinkers break with the classical image of philosophy as looking beyond affectivity for a knowledge of the world that can allow us to attain surety of judgement, virtue and happiness, and instead insist that the task of philosophy is not to (...) judge what is right or wrong, but understand how it is that we come to make such judgements. As Spinoza famously remarks, we do not desire something because it is good; we rather call something good because we desire it. Philosophy for Spinoza and Nietzsche thus traces the affective genesis of our desires to help us compose our relations in the world in the most joyful manner possible. The crucial orientating role of affective experience thus joins these two disparate thinkers in a single and rare task: to make knowledge the most powerful affect. (shrink)

This article reviews the influence of Stoic thought on the development of Spinoza's and Nietzsche's ethics and suggests that although both philosophers follow the Stoics in conceiving of ethics as a therapeutic enterprise that aims at human freedom and flourishing, they part company with Stoicism in refusing to identify flourishing with freedom from the passions. In making this claim, I take issue with the standard view of Spinoza's ethics, according to which the passions figure exclusively as a (...) source of unhappiness and bondage from which we must be liberated. I argue that, in fact, Spinoza anticipates Nietzsche and breaks with the Stoics in offering a more positive assessment of the role of passion in a flourishing life. The reading pursued here takes Spinoza's divergence from the Stoic account of the passions to be a consequence of his insistence on the immanence of human being in nature. I outline Spinoza's and Nietzsche's conception of immanence and suggest that it entails a common understanding of our nature as dynamic power or desire, which is simultaneously expressed as a capacity to act and be acted on, to affect and to be affected. The recognition of the complex relationship between passive and active power requires a revaluation of our vulnerability and openness to what can affect us and leads each philosopher to a consideration of the ways in which the passions might be made to support our striving to increase our power and to realize an essentially limited freedom and precarious flourishing. Copyright. (shrink)

This article evaluates the significance of the personal liberation that Santayana offers in relation to previous proposals in Western modern philosophy. These include the ideas of liberation present in the philosophies of Spinoza, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche. I argue that Santayana endorses Spinoza’s project, as Schopenhauer and Nietzsche did, of a philosophic redemption as an alternative to an established religion. Yet, he also follows Schopenhauer in rectifying Spinoza’s attempt of recapturing the philosophic truth of Christianity, a (...) project undertaken in Medieval times for Judaism and Islam, but not for Christianity. The result is an explicit philosophic reconstruction of the esoteric truth of Christianity. This, I argue, is the content of the lay religion and the deliverance it provides that Santayana sees as genuine philosophy and that is exemplified by the work of his hero and master, Spinoza. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Nietzsche-Studien Jahrgang: 46 Heft: 1 Seiten: 314-323.

This thematic study focuses especially on the role that suffering plays in the practice of philosophy. It identifies and interprets the basic structures and possibilities related to the experience of suffering; and, it examines some of the significant historical contributions that have influenced our thinking about this issue. ;It begins by developing a preliminary definition of suffering. After which, it seeks and examines those same basic structures in the contributions of Plato, Augustine, Spinoza, Nietzsche, and Heidegger---each in their (...) own chapters. ;The study of Plato centers on suffering conceived in terms of eros, with particular attention paid to that suffering at the crucial intersection of the sensible and the intelligible. ;The study of Augustine focuses on suffering conceived in terms of the tension between the human and the divine. The role of suffering in Christianity is summarized, and Augustine's personal example is employed as an illustration. The contrast between the sufferings of Job and those of Jesus are explored briefly with respect to the question of results. ;The studies of Spinoza and Nietzsche are combined in the same chapter because they both naturalize suffering. In Spinoza, the focus is on his analysis of how human beings rise above their passivity through an increase in their active power of understanding. In Nietzsche, the call for an even greater suffering is analyzed. ;The study of Heidegger examines suffering in both his earlier works and later works . Heidegger's insensitivity to the suffering of the Holocaust is also discussed. ;The conclusion examines the contemporary perspective of James R. Watson's Between Auschwitz and Tradition, and then speculates on what is called for today in terms of thinking and suffering. It argues that thought needs to acknowledge its bodily dwelling, confront its limitations, and open itself to that which is 'other.' In the face of all the resistances, thinking today needs to be suffering. (shrink)

The connection between Spinoza and Nietzsche has often been remarked upon in the literature on the two thinkers.1 Not surprisingly, Nietzsche himself first noticed the similarity between his (earlier) thought and the thought of Spinoza, remarking to Overbeck in an oft-quoted postcard, “I have a precursor, and what a precursor!” He goes on to say, “Not only is his over-all tendency like mine – making knowledge the most powerful affect – but in five main points of (...) his doctrine I recognize myself; this most unusual and loneliest thinker is closest to me in precisely these matters: he denies the freedom of the will, teleology, the moral world order, the unegoistic, and evil. Even though the divergences are admittedly tremendous, they are due more to the difference in time, culture, and science.”2 One aspect of his own thought that Nietzsche does not list here, however, is his “doctrine” of “becoming who one is.” Is this an example of a point at which Spinoza and Nietzsche’s views separate? In this paper, I should like to consider whether or not Spinoza could plausibly be understood to have had a similar view; that is, I should like to examine whether or not the process for Spinoza of achieving happiness and beatitude can be seen principally as an instance of “becoming who one is.” There are, of course, some obvious and notorious difficulties in trying to understand what Nietzsche meant by the phrase “to become who one is.” After all, Nietzsche seems to deny both the existence of the self (as substance) and being in general, saying that there is only becoming. What, then, might this phrase mean? As this paper concerns principally the philosophy of Spinoza, I do not want to get too bogged down in the difficulties involved in interpreting Nietzsche; rather, I wish to follow without further argument the.. (shrink)

Resumo: Para além da triangulação Nietzsche-Kuno Fischer-Spinoza, a proposta do texto é perscrutar as peculiaridades da relação entre Nietzsche e Spinoza, partindo não de uma conexão biunívoca e restrita a Nietzsche e Spinoza, mas de menções compartilhadas, em que outros filósofos e pensadores são mencionados. A partir daí se pretende evidenciar traços de uma relação que é de admiração pelo “profundo ocultador”, mas também de crítica pelas instâncias que tal ocultador mascarou e que acabaram (...) por consumi-lo.: Beyond the triangulation Nietzsche-Kuno Fischer-Spinoza, the purpose of the article is to investigate the peculiarities of the relation between Nietzsche and Spinoza, stemming not from the biunivocal relationship restricted to Nietzsche and Spinoza, but from the references shared with other philosophers and thinkers mentioned by the German philosopher. Thenceforth, we intend to emphasize traits of a relationship based on admiration for the “deep hidden”, but also on critics related to spheres that this very hidden disguised and that after all consumed him. (shrink)

Spinoza Contra Phenomenology fundamentally recasts the history of postwar French thought, typically presumed to have been driven by a critique of reason indebted to Nietzsche and Heidegger. Although the reception of phenomenology gave rise to many innovative developments in French philosophy, from existentialism to deconstruction, not everyone in France was pleased with this German import. This book recounts how a series of French philosophers used Spinoza to erect a bulwark against the nominally irrationalist tendencies of phenomenology. From (...) its beginnings in the interwar years, this rationalism would prove foundational for Althusser's rethinking of Marxism and Deleuze's ambitious metaphysics. There has been a renewed enthusiasm for Spinozism of late by those who see his work as a kind of neo-vitalism or philosophy of life and affect. Peden counters this trend by tracking a decisive and neglected aspect of Spinoza's philosophy—his rationalism—in a body of thought too often presumed to have rejected reason. In the process, he demonstrates that the virtues of Spinoza's rationalism have yet to be exhausted. (shrink)

This article is concerned with the Spinozian topic of understanding human actions and its interpretation by Nietzsche in The Gay Science 333. Nietzsche doesn’t read directly Spinoza’s work but rather the volume of Kuno Fischer’s History of Modern Philosophy dedicated to the XVIIth century philosopher; this can be confirmed by the way in which the text is quoted. Even if Nietzsche reduces greatly the power of understanding to one of its aspect translating intelligere as erkennen, it (...) is necessary to emphasize that the aphorism presents a novelty that can enrich the study of the relationship between these two philosophers. Nietzsche identifies conscious thought with the “last scenes of reconciliation” between different drives of a previous unconscious process. Even if the point of departure of this survey is the centrality of affects in both thinkers, it will also identify a precise limit which distances Spinoza’s understanding of the affects from the centrality of drives in Nietzsche’s philosophical project. (shrink)

The free spirit is central to Spinoza, Hegel, and Nietzsche. Each of them sees it as linked to the recognition of necessity. They also see freedom in relation to the Totality: God or nature for Spinoza, absolute spirit for Hegel, and for Nietzsche the will to power operating within the eternal recurrence of the same. For all three—especially for Nietzsche who might seem to hold the opposite—the free condition is won through strenuous self-discipline. Further, all (...) three deal with the notion of Being. For Spinoza, the notion of Being as the starting-point is equivalent to substance; for Hegel, Being is empty reference to Totality that affords primordial distance for individual human beings; for Nietzsche, Being is irrelevant emptiness. But it is only Hegel who establishes a ground for individual self-determinationthrough the emptiness of the human reference toward Totality. (shrink)

Para Deleuze, la ética es un saber experimental: se trata de componer relaciones, probar si una nueva conexión aumenta la potencia del cuerpo o la depotencia. Este artículo persigue un objetivo central: mostrar los elementos necesarios para la construcción de una ética inmanente y relacional que no esté fundada en el modelo del juicio moral, sino como una praxis experimental a partir de la interpretación que Deleuze hace de la ética de Spinoza y la filosofía de Nietzsche.

Al intentar establecer cuánto debe Nietzsche a Spinoza en la configuración de su visión radical del mundo y quién de los dos da los pasos más decisivos en la disolución de la trascendencia, encontramos diversas dificultades. La primera es que la disputa acerca del ateísmo spinociano parece que no podrá nunca dirimirse en un grado aceptable. La segunda dice relación con la imagen que Nietzsche tiene de Spinoza en tanto puede considerarse sesgada debido al conocimiento indirecto (...) de su obra. La tercera es que para determinar, en parte, qué adeuda la interpretación de Nietzsche al filósofo holandés, se requiere hacer un análisis exhaustivo y pormenorizado de sus autores fuente. Tomando en cuenta estas complejidades, el autor del artículo defiende que para formarse una idea adecuada de la deuda del radicalismo de Nietzsche con Spinoza y para juzgar quién de ellos nos precipita con más relevancia a la pura inmanencia, es necesario ir estudiando sus lecturas sobre el filósofo judío, incluso las más descuidadas, más allá de Kuno Fischer. De acuerdo con ello, en este escrito se analizan dos lecturas de Nietzsche poco utilizadas en esta reflexión, a saber: Heinrich Heine y Jean-Marie Guyau. Se asume así que, para alcanzar un nivel más alto de claridad en el tema estudiado, se ha de acotar el marco bibliográfico en el que se ha de realizar la hermenéutica de Nietzsche y sus fuentes. Teniendo presente estos presupuestos, se compara el panteísmo, la desantropomorfización del mundo y el conatus sese conservandi de Spinoza, con el monismo, la extramoralidad del mundo y la voluntad de poder de Nietzsche, respectivamente, para evaluar el alcance del radicalismo cosmológico de uno y otro autor. (shrink)

Beck discusses the works on religion of the six philosophers he considers most germane to contemporary issues: Spinoza, Hume, Kant, Nietzsche, James, and Santayana. "I have tried to choose men whose independence of mind was such that they often appeared to their contemporaries to be enemies of religion". He first addresses the question, What is secular philosophy? And then explains the differences between the "families" of secular philosophers, before examining both their life and works.

In den ersten Kapiteln werde ich ein ethologisches Modell von Körperlichkeit vorstellen, in dem Körper, ganz im Sinne Spinozas, als lokale Bestandteile eines weltweiten Gefüges gedacht werden. Körper sind demnach keine von ihrer Umgebung isolierbaren Substanzen, in ihnen treten vielmehr Sach-Verhalte in Erscheinung, denen ein systemisches Selbsterhaltungsstreben (conatus) innewohnt. Der den Körpern immanente Appetit, sich in ihrem Sein zu erhalten, bezieht sich daher nicht nur auf die Selbsterhaltung des eigenen Organismus, sondern auf die systemische Erhaltung des eigenen In-der-Welt-Seins, das ein (...) Organismus mit seiner Umwelt teilt. In den darauffolgenden Kapiteln analysiere ich die dunkle Alchemie, die Körper erleiden, wenn ihr Appetit, sich in ihrem Sein zu erhalten, durch äußere Ursachen gehemmt und schließlich vergiftet wird. Eine Dynamik, die Nietzsche in seiner Streitschrift Zur Genealogie der Moral treffend als Wille zum Nichts charakterisiert hatte. In ihr verkehrt sich der Lebenswille in einen Hass auf das Leben, der sich am Leben zu rächen beginnt, indem er es verdammt. Diesem destruktiven, selbstwidersprüchlichen Willen zum Nichts setzt Spinoza im fünften Buch seiner Ethik eine Glückseligkeitslehre entgegen, die den Geist der Rache immunisiert, indem sie an der Hervorbringung freudvoller Lebensverhältnisse arbeitet. Nicht der dialektische Kampf gegen das Ressentiment und seine destruktive Dynamik steht daher im Zentrum seiner Ethik. Es ist vielmehr die Kultivierung aktiver Affekte – Affekte der Freude, Liebe und Selbstzufriedenheit –, die für Spinoza das Ende der Hass- und Gewaltspirale versprechen. Damit zieht er die Konsequenzen aus der Einsicht, dass ein Affekt nur durch einen anderen, stärkeren Affekt gehemmt und schließlich außer Kraft gesetzt werden kann: Hass durch tiefgründige Liebeserfahrungen, Ressentiment durch freudvolle Erfahrungen. (shrink)

In this extraordinary work Gilles Deleuze, the most renowned living philosopher in France, reflects on one of the figures of the past who has most influenced his own sweeping reconfiguration of the tasks of philosophy.Deleuze's brilliant text shows how current definitions of philosophy do not apply to Spinoza: a solitary thinker, he conceived of philosophy as an enterprise of liberation and radical demystification much as did Leibniz or, later Nietzsche. Spinoza confronts the grand philosophical problems that are (...) still current today: the comparative role of ontology, of epistemology, and of political anthropology.The goal of this book is to determine the rapport among the univocity of Being in the theory of substance; the production of truth and the genesis of sense in the theory of ideas; and practical joy and the selective organization of the passions in the theory of modes. (shrink)

RESUMO A ética é um tema constante na obra de Gilles Deleuze, ainda que aparentemente não figure como assunto principal de nenhum de seus livros. Isso se explica, pois, para ele, a filosofia prática, formada pela ética e pela política, é coextensiva a toda a filosofia. Por um lado, não há um aspecto puramente teórico ou especulativo da filosofia; por outro lado, a ética não é uma dentre outras disciplinas filosóficas, mas a sua dimensão prática e sempre presente, não havendo (...) qualquer motivo para que seja tratada em separado. Sendo assim, abordar a ética em Deleuze exige percorrer todos os seus escritos e escolher uma chave de leitura. Aqui, pretende-se explorar como Deleuze lança as bases para a sua própria concepção de ética a partir da grande identidade Spinoza-Nietzsche produzida por ele. Propõe-se uma fórmula para a ética em Deleuze: um corpo que experimenta e avalia. Dessa fórmula, destaca-se o primeiro eixo a ser trabalhado: a ética deleuziana como ética do corpo. O segundo eixo é a importante oposição entre ética e moral. O terceiro, a relação entre ética e ontologia. E o quarto e último eixo, a formação ética como aprendizado contínuo. ABSTRACT Ethics is a constant theme in Gilles Deleuze’s philosophy, even though it does not seem to figure as the main subject in his books. This happens because, according to him, practical philosophy - formed both by ethics and politics - is coextensive to philosophy as a whole. On the one hand, there is no purely theoretical or speculative philosophy; on the other hand, ethics is not one amongst other philosophical disciplines, but its practical and always present dimension, there being no reason to be treated separately. Thus, to approach ethics in Deleuze’s thought means to go through all his writings to choose one key. The aim of this paper is to explore how Deleuze launches what he calls a great Spinoza-Nietzsche identity as the key, the basis for his conception of ethics. A formula is proposed for ethics in Deleuze’s philosophy: a body that experiments and evaluates. From this formula, a first axis to be worked is highlighted: Deleuzean ethics as a body ethics. The second axis lies on the important opposition between ethics and morals. A third axis is the relation between ethics and ontology. Finally, a fourth and last axis is ethical formation understood as continuous apprenticeship. (shrink)

Al intentar clarificar lo que Spinoza, Schopenhauer y Nietzsche entienden por deseo encontramos que este concepto está asociado en ellos a una particular acepción de la idea de voluntad. En Spinoza y en Schopenhauer se encuentra presente esta identificación. En Nietzsche el deseo se encuentra oculto, disimulado y encerrado en las figuras metafóricas de lo dionisíaco y lo melódico. Desire, Will and Pain in Spinoza, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche In attempting to clarify what Spinoza, (...) Schopenhauer and Nietzsche understand by desire, we find this concept to be associated, for them, to a particular meaning of the idea of will. This identification is present both, in Spinoza and Schopenhauer. In Nietzsche, desire is hidden, disguised and locked up in the metaphorical figures of the Dionysian and the melodic. (shrink)

Spinoza ' s understanding and understanding Spinoza -- Spinoza ' s understanding -- Understanding Spinoza -- The metaphysics of substance -- Descartes and substance -- Spinoza contra Descartes on substance -- Modes -- Necessitarianism -- The purpose of it all -- The human mind -- Parallelism and representation -- Essence and representation -- Parallelism and mind - body identity -- The idea of the human body -- The pancreas problem, the pan problem, and panpsychism -- (...) Nothing but representation -- Representation, will, and belief -- Skepticism -- Psychology : striving and self - preservation -- Conatus -- Desire, joy, and sadness -- Love, hate, and all that -- The ethics of the ethics -- The good notion of the good -- The right notion of the right -- Knowledge and morality -- Freedom and morality -- Helping others -- Lies and degrees of freedom -- The state, religion, and scripture -- Rights and power -- Religion and the state -- Scripture -- Prophecy and the truth of the Bible -- From PSR to eternity -- The aftermath of Spinoza -- Leibniz -- Bayle and Hume -- The pantheism controversy -- Hegel -- Nietzsche -- Prospects of spinozistic rationalism. (shrink)