Benedict De Spinoza His father wanted him to be a rabbi he was very intelligient

Benedict De Spinoza

His father wanted him to be a rabbi he was very intelligient

While being taught under Frances that’s where became interested in philosophy and studied it intently

Excommunicated from the Jewish faith because (they think) of his religious views and how he viewed God, although it was not stated, they believed the Christian leaders in Amsterdam would look badly upon the whole Jewish community b/c of Spinoza

Principles of Cartesian Philosophy was highly praised but was his only work published during his lifetime, due to the fact that it was so against what people believed, caused uproars

1670 After publishing theologico-political treatise it was banned 4 years later

1675 finishes ethics but couldn’t publish it b/c there were rumors that he was publishing a book which sought to show there is no god, those rumors prevented the publication of it

3 other works published by friend: Treatise on the emendation of the intellect, political treatise, and hebrew grammar

Ethics is written in a geometrical form, definitions and axioms and postulates are stated and then propositions are derived from these assumptions and then

3 simple steps

If there were to be a second substance, it would have to have some attribute or essence, but since God has ALL attributes, then the attribute possessed by 2^nd substance would be one of the attributes already possessed by God. BUT it has already been established that no 2 substances can have the same attribute

Quote “all things have necessarily flowed, or always followed, by the same necessity and in the same way as from the nature of a triangle it follows, from eternity and to eternity, that its three angles are equal to two right angles”

Right triangle: consisting of GOD, WORLD, NATURE, everything connects to one another and you need all 3

Everything that exists is a part of Nature and is brought into being by nature w/a deterministic necessity

Example of miracle: read in Reader’s Digest once that someone had a tumor and had been to the doctor, had numerous test and xrays done showing there was a tumor, yet when the doctor goes to operate and remove it, the tumor is gone….how is that explained???

We have no free will according to my notes from previous presentations this is opposite of what Voltaire believed and Spinoza’s thoughts definitely differed greatly from John Wesley