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A review by couuboy
The Ethics/Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect/Selected Letters by Baruch Spinoza
5.0
I think I’m starting to get it.
I’ve been rather stultified for the last month or so which is worsened by me vaguely knowing the causes and what to do and then subsequently not doing it, but I’m confident I think I’m starting to start to get it. I think it has something to do with zoo’s. Like the place with the animals. A few years ago, I use to live a few minutes’ walk from the Melbourne zoo, and so I often made use of it. The Melbourne zoo is standard as far as zoo’s go: monkey’s that chase after each other, ostriches that scare pretty much everyone, a tiger or two which pace seemingly all day. Did you know a lot of zoo animals are on anti-depressants, I mean so are a lot of human’s so maybe this isn’t noteworthy.
It would be an injustice to say Spinoza’s ‘Ethics’ only has one main concept but one of the more predominant ones is his notion of the ‘conatus’ which is relatively similar to the ‘will’ if this was the 19th century, or the ‘unconscious’ if it were the 20th. To explain the conatus properly you’d probably need to mention Spinoza’s metaphysics, which is all about God, except not the God you’re thinking of, it’s God that’s radically appropriated by Spinoza for his purpose of liberating us (resulting in his accusations of heresy and subsequent excommunication from his Jewish community). God is the cloth from which everything is cut but even once its cut its still necessarily God. God is nature naturing, and nature natured is everything that exists in relation to God. God is that which produces, what is produced are modes of God. To better understand God is what we’re here to do, or maybe you could just say to better understand is our purpose. This probably doesn’t mean anything, I know – I swear it makes more sense once you’ve read it from Spinoza himself. The conatus is the inherent urge of all beings to continue and improve its existence, to become more “perfect” through deeper understanding of all external causes and how they relate to God – this is marked by an increase in joy. This is not something with an end goal, you do not, so to speak, realise the conatus, you just keep pursuing it. One’s conatus can be quantified so to speak by your power, how much power you have to prevent external causes from impeding you. You are powerful if you can keep improving yourself and prevent the external world from reducing your power, if you understand then you’re better equipped to prevent external things from decomposing you and also at allowing greater self-composition. Other people can help you on the way and this is a reason not to be selfish or tyrannical, it’s not a zero-sum game, we must help each other become more powerful through knowledge to help ourselves.
The lions at the zoo seriously do pace all day – I’ve sat and watched for as long as I could and the only change is during feeding which lasts maybe 5 or 10 minutes and then they return to their cowpath. When you look at animals in the zoo do you think they’re happy or satisfied? You could say they have a good lifestyle, right? Secure home, food and water, entertainment, no threats. Is not the guarantee of sustained life what we are all tolling for? Is this not happiness, to be able to look upon your life and finally rest upon your laurels? I think what I’m starting to start to get with Spinoza is that happiness is a by-product. Okay, this much is obvious – this isn’t per se what I’m starting to get. What I mean to say is that I think happiness is irrelevant, not even worth considering, a red herring through and through. The animals in the zoo are happy and that’s just the problem. That’s the problem with our current notion of happiness and what’s desirable and what to strive for. According to Spinoza, and I think he’s right, there is no end goal to which we strive and which will provide us with that all too desirable sense of complete and unalloyed resolution. There is no sustained happiness, instead there is only the joy which comes as a result of the continued increase towards perfection. For the sake of the pacing lion in you, burst beyond the safety of the cage and try to begin to start to get it.
I’ve been rather stultified for the last month or so which is worsened by me vaguely knowing the causes and what to do and then subsequently not doing it, but I’m confident I think I’m starting to start to get it. I think it has something to do with zoo’s. Like the place with the animals. A few years ago, I use to live a few minutes’ walk from the Melbourne zoo, and so I often made use of it. The Melbourne zoo is standard as far as zoo’s go: monkey’s that chase after each other, ostriches that scare pretty much everyone, a tiger or two which pace seemingly all day. Did you know a lot of zoo animals are on anti-depressants, I mean so are a lot of human’s so maybe this isn’t noteworthy.
It would be an injustice to say Spinoza’s ‘Ethics’ only has one main concept but one of the more predominant ones is his notion of the ‘conatus’ which is relatively similar to the ‘will’ if this was the 19th century, or the ‘unconscious’ if it were the 20th. To explain the conatus properly you’d probably need to mention Spinoza’s metaphysics, which is all about God, except not the God you’re thinking of, it’s God that’s radically appropriated by Spinoza for his purpose of liberating us (resulting in his accusations of heresy and subsequent excommunication from his Jewish community). God is the cloth from which everything is cut but even once its cut its still necessarily God. God is nature naturing, and nature natured is everything that exists in relation to God. God is that which produces, what is produced are modes of God. To better understand God is what we’re here to do, or maybe you could just say to better understand is our purpose. This probably doesn’t mean anything, I know – I swear it makes more sense once you’ve read it from Spinoza himself. The conatus is the inherent urge of all beings to continue and improve its existence, to become more “perfect” through deeper understanding of all external causes and how they relate to God – this is marked by an increase in joy. This is not something with an end goal, you do not, so to speak, realise the conatus, you just keep pursuing it. One’s conatus can be quantified so to speak by your power, how much power you have to prevent external causes from impeding you. You are powerful if you can keep improving yourself and prevent the external world from reducing your power, if you understand then you’re better equipped to prevent external things from decomposing you and also at allowing greater self-composition. Other people can help you on the way and this is a reason not to be selfish or tyrannical, it’s not a zero-sum game, we must help each other become more powerful through knowledge to help ourselves.
The lions at the zoo seriously do pace all day – I’ve sat and watched for as long as I could and the only change is during feeding which lasts maybe 5 or 10 minutes and then they return to their cowpath. When you look at animals in the zoo do you think they’re happy or satisfied? You could say they have a good lifestyle, right? Secure home, food and water, entertainment, no threats. Is not the guarantee of sustained life what we are all tolling for? Is this not happiness, to be able to look upon your life and finally rest upon your laurels? I think what I’m starting to start to get with Spinoza is that happiness is a by-product. Okay, this much is obvious – this isn’t per se what I’m starting to get. What I mean to say is that I think happiness is irrelevant, not even worth considering, a red herring through and through. The animals in the zoo are happy and that’s just the problem. That’s the problem with our current notion of happiness and what’s desirable and what to strive for. According to Spinoza, and I think he’s right, there is no end goal to which we strive and which will provide us with that all too desirable sense of complete and unalloyed resolution. There is no sustained happiness, instead there is only the joy which comes as a result of the continued increase towards perfection. For the sake of the pacing lion in you, burst beyond the safety of the cage and try to begin to start to get it.