Spinoza's Ethics

On top of the suggestions already given, what I find helps is taking notes. Write down what you think Spinoza is trying to say, but in your own words. Use the definition of the words he uses to construct a reasonable interpretation of what each axiom is trying to say. Once you have the axioms understood if you put in the time to work through each proof you shouldn't have a problem with the various propositions.

Also, don't bother worry about why the axioms are true. They are just assumptions Spinoza is making.

>Plz Veeky Forums, I want to believe in God.
Why the fuck would you read an atheist then?

Kant and Hegel though otherwise, the latter even saying he had "too much God in his system", and Goethe called him "theissimus". Just saying.

allow me to quote ethics, proposition XI: "god, or substance, consisting of infinite attributes, of which each expresses eternal and infinite essentiality, necessarily exists."

His "God" is very different to the god of theism and from what I understand is equated with the universe and I see pantheism as romantic atheism.
Maybe I'm wrong on that one, but Spinoza is certainly not the philospher to read if you want to believe in God.

I feel like using this proposition as a justification for Spinoza advocating the existence of a christian god is misleading, as well as a poor understanding of what is being argued.

ctr+f "christian" huh, nothing there!

Well, while is disingenous in his use of the proposition, you can't say that reading the Ethics doesn't give an engaged reader a profound sense of oneness with the totality of Being - some kind of Immanent Ecstasy. That could constitute a fairly powerful spiritual experience for some, giving birth to some form of raw belief.

Please don't shit up the thread with this kind of idiotic "retort". That's being obnoxiously and willfully dense.

Sorry, for the admittedly idiotic response, I've been shitposting with political radicals all day on Facebook forgot to turn it off. That said,
OP here, what you described is what I'm looking for and what I knew Ethics described. Nowhere did I mean to insinuate a christian or otherwise theistic god.

>Nowhere did I mean to insinuate a christian or otherwise theistic god.
"God" usually supposed a theistic one. The very usage of the word implies it.

yeah I shouldn't have capitalized ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

No worries, I just wanted this likeable, decent thread not to turn into the usual religious shitposting.

I don't really agree, that's a preconception due to our (I assume) living in countries whose culture and language have formed around that notion - but that doesn't mean one could not be talking about another entity.

But it's a fair assumption, here and now on this board, to assume so like you did.

Spinoza isn't that hard. He connects all of his points together very neatly. Just read very carefully, slowly, and make sure you understand the terms he is using. I read the Hackett edition and there was an explanation of terms at the beginning. He is using many of the same terms as the Scholastics. Consult the definitions frequently and take some notes if it suits you.

I got stuck on some parts for a short time, but I was able to figure them out on my own after a bit of thinking. There was a part or two where I had to Google a bit.

Keep in mind that Spinoza views even empty space as a substance, because that tripped me up.

Deleuze - Spinoza: Practical Philosophy
read this first

Thanks for the tip about empty space! Does anyone else have specific tips like that?

I'm currently on Prop. VIII, this is by far the farthest I have gotten and it is making a lot more sense this time with all the encouragement.

specifically more examples of what a "substance" might be. My current one in my head is that a "tree" is a substance, spruce and oak it's modifications, and the sensory experience of tree generalized into a form as it's attribute(s). My understanding is being challenged by the fact that substances must be self-caused, however.

Descartes, like Aristotle, says that a substance is that which sustains its own existence. He says that there are many substances, but he concedes that, technically speaking, only God can be a substance since only God can sustain his own existence.

Spinoza takes this idea and runs with it, saying that God is the only substance that exists, period.

>Plz Veeky Forums, I want to believe in God.
Why does this keep happening? Is this a fucking meme?

Spinoza was NOT a theist in most sense of the word. He basically believes in a 'one' from which everything emanates. See Plotinus

He did believe in God though.

Spinoza told everyone he believed in 'God' to keep the heat off him. He was under fire for being an atheist.

Read The Ethics and Theological-Political Treatise. Again, as I mentioned before, his philosophy in terms of 'God' bares a greater similarity to Plotinus than anything offered by the three monotheisms.

yeah he calls the one god though. Why'd ya have to go and throw the m-word into a perfectly pleasant thread?

He still has some idea of God though. Yes, it's not what is typically conceived to be God in the West, but it's some idea of God nonetheless. The fact that Substance is God and God is Substance is absolutely essential to his system.

Plotinus' Hypostasis and Spinoza's One are basically the philosophical image which originated the Catholic concept of God. I mean, The Father, The Spirit and The Holy Ghost are literally copy-pasted from Plotinus' works.

Absolutely. If OP meant that he wants to believe in the notion that we/earth/space are all modes of the same substance (God), than of course.

However, from his initial post, it seems he is longing to believe in a God that's a bit more involved. But perhaps I assumed.

Yeah I took a class on this. Tracing the lineage of the Trinity is fascinating as hell. You should read some Sloterdijk if you're interested in tracing theological constructs. God's Zeal is fantastic

OP here, the god thing was really just to add flavor to me post. The real reason I want to read Ethics is the endorsement of it from Will Durant who's writing I have deeply fallen in love with in the last few months.

Hm, I will check his works out. I really like studying the philosophic undertones in religions. Should I just begin with God's Zeal?

My apologies then. It's really a pretty straightforward read, but something that helped me a TON in my first read through was Charles Jarett's Spinoza: A Guide for the Perplexed. He goes through most of the various interpretations of the particularly tricky passages. If you go to uni I'm sure they will have it

Yeah, that's his work entered on religion. He has a wide variety of philosophical works. He's arguably Germany's best contemporary philosopher.

God's Zeal is also a relatively easy read. Really great stuff though. It illuminates all the areas in which Christianity ripped off Judaism, why the Quran is written the way it is, how isolation is imperative to the preservation of Jusaism, etc. it's essentialy a lot of stuff you probably intuitively know but haven't put together yet. Phenomenal work.