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Spinoza’s error
Saturday, 4 January 2025 at 19:04
Spinoza’s error
The Substance, the hypostasis, the underlying reality, is Spinoza’s great and unquestioned presupposition. Spinoza began his Ethics with definitions, starting with the ‘cause of itself’ or causa sui.Definition 3 says: ‘By Substance I mean that which is in itself and is conceived through itself; that is, that, the conception of which does not require the conception of another thing from which it has to be formed.’
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), the Romantic poet and philosopher, long ago knew what was lost in these so-called Ethics.The ‘Sage of Highgate’ recognised the anti-humanism of Spinoza early on, lamenting that Spinoza’s ‘error consisted not so much in what he affirms, as in what he has omitted to affirm or rashly denied . . . that he saw God in the ground only and exclusively, in his Might alone and his essential Wisdom, and not likewise in his moral, intellectual, existential and personal Godhead’. In short, the Ethics lacked the theoretical basis for an ethics and, above all, lacked hope.
From Child of Encounter
© John Dunn.
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Religious reality
Thursday, 2 January 2025 at 21:14
Martin Buber
Religious reality
To Spinozists like Marx and Engels, the answer to ‘who am I?’ is - ‘you are what you have to be’. In Spinoza’s concept of God, or the One, or Ein Sof, subjectivity is subsumed within Substance, never allowing for a clear separation of the two. This was the reason why Martin Buber said that Spinoza left no room for dialogue with God. Spinoza, to whom the knowledge of God was everything, nevertheless deprived man of an essential element of religious reality: the ‘approachability’ of God or,as Buber called it, his ‘dialogue’ relation with God. And trust me, there is far more to this ‘dialogue relation’ than Buber or any other religionist would have you believe, as I hope will become apparent by the end of this book.
From Child of Encounter
© John Dunn.
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Uprighting Spinoza
Wednesday, 1 January 2025 at 17:22
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Uprighting Spinoza
For Hegel everything begins with the realisation that there is something exceptional and inescapable in Spinoza’s philosophy. He wrote ‘du hast entweder den Spinozismus oder keine Philosophie’ - you have either Spinozism or no philosophy at all. When Marx ‘turned Hegel on this head’, he was in reality ‘uprighting’ Spinoza, following Fichte's inversion.
From Child of Encounter
© John Dunn.
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redland2
Tuesday, 31 December 2024 at 21:01
Marx’s strange upturning
Yes - there was always something strange in Marx’s upturning assertion about Hegel. The truth is that Marx espoused Spinozism, the denial of human will and creativity. Marx took much from Hegel, but Hegel too was a Spinozist, inheriting his concept of Absolute Spirit from Judaism and Kabbalah. For Hegel, the origin, substance, purpose and direction of the universe was the realisation of an infinite knowledge, consciousness, or mind. Like the Kabbalists, Hegel held that the world’s beginning, substance and end is to be found in an infinite, all inclusive, Absolute Being. This Absolute, which is analogous to the Kabbalist’s Ein-sof, is conceived of by Hegel as the Absolute Spirit, a notion that is itself present in many kabbalistic works.
From Child of Encounter
© John Dunn.
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Only Spinozism
Monday, 30 December 2024 at 17:14
Spinoza/Marx
Only Spinozism
Ilyenkov, the Soviet Marxist, fell under the evil curse of Spinoza. Parsifal might as well have chosen Klingsor as his guide to the Grail. Ilyenkov must have known that there is no such thing as Marxism - only Spinozism,which means without room for contingency, man has to understand necessity and subject himself to it.
In Spinozism, I came to a retrospective understanding of my own Marxist thinking - and there were two surprises. Firstly, what I had once thought of as dynamic and revolutionary in my attitude was essentially passive and static. Secondly, this state of passive acceptance has triumphed as the underlying principle of all thought in today’s world as it applies to ethical and scientific matters. In both instances, the animal soul has defeated the divine.
From Child of Encounter
© John Dunn.
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The siren screams
Sunday, 29 December 2024 at 16:54
Conor Walton, Siren
The siren screams
The siren screams long and hard, drowning out the divine voice. Deafened at maximum each animal soul has its own methods: music, internet, interminable travelling, meetings, business activities, gregarious chatter, pornography, eating out, cinema, charity, sport, work, alcohol.These are characteristic of our time, but in all epochs evil had one task — to lead the pilgrim away from the true path. Perceval went on many a misguided adventure, lost many battles and made wrong turns in the woods. The life-journey is not a straight line, we all know about that.
From Child of Encounter
© John Dunn.
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The journey must begin
Saturday, 28 December 2024 at 21:41
The journey must begin
The siren now is the politico-media complex, which urges us to go with the current, be at peace with the world, leaving the animal soul with a yearning for uniform uniqueness. Populations are psychiatrised and clinicised. He’s fat - it’s an illness; he’s lazy - it’s an illness; he’s addicted - it’s an illness. Explanations can be found on the level of the animal soul. To never transgress and just allow everything to happen, this is an animal level of existence. The journey must begin, but I need more sleep. I need to prepare, but I’m not in the mood, better tomorrow.
From Child of Encounter
© John Dunn.
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