Spinoza/Nihilism

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

In a recent side discussion about another poster, who has an interest in Spinoza, that annoys me, I realized something that I want to run by all of you.

Firstly, the thing that annoys me about Spinoza is that I see his basic world view that, god determines all things and that everything is as it should be, to be what influenced Liebnitz, and what was ultimately (but I guess not finally) made foolish by Voltaire.

So, on one hand, I view the ideas as being very outdated, but on the other, realize that my attitude is more a personal endorsement of a philosopher that I happen to resonate with than a final word.

Practically, I’m opposed to Spinoza’s ideas because, similar to the reason I dislike Taoism, non-action is the end product (let‘s not argue the Taoism bit ). The world is the best possible of all worlds and so what is the point of attempting improvement. It is my belief, and personal experience, that an existentialist approach to life works in that people make change no matter how small.

Of course the tricky aspect of the Spinoza argument is that if you did or didn’t act, then that’s the way it was supposed to be anyway. I reject that as being excessively tricky and not necessarily valid just because it sounds unbeatable. The fact is that it’s based on the “can’t prove a negative” argument that atheists usually face.

These were my standard complaints, but then it occurred to me that Spinoza’s philosophy is actually a philosophy of Nihilism, of a sort. Traditionally, Nihilism is associated with a belief that there’s no god and no meaning, so there is no real purpose in doing anything. Although Spinoza talks about god, it’s in a way that decentralizes the being, thus almost eliminating him. More importantly, since everything is determined nothing is important or needs to be done, thus the sheer amount of meaning renders human action meaningless.

So, Spinoza and Nihilism both preach that human action and decision (internally motivated) are pointless and pointless to be concerned about.

I tend to think that’s why I find Spinoza to be unpalatable.

What do you think?

2

I think I haven’t read any Spinoza so I’m just gonna chill and watch this one.

Still though, I can’t wait. Methinks this thread will get… ridiculous.

3

Yeah, Ad. Right on. Reading Spinoza is like reading Hume in that way. Except that Hume’s only goal was to justify his atheism. If you read either, and your strongest response is “So what?”, then you are understanding what you read. To say that this world, or any other world, is the best of all possible worlds is nothing but gibberish. It is an utterance with no meaning. Even though it can be contained in a perfectly logical and understandable sentence. So much for sentences.

That no satisfactory rejoinder to a philosophical thesis is at hand is no measure of that thesis. Philosophy is not science. Hume may have shown that we cannot predict the future with any certainty. This only matters if predicting the future is what you want to do, and you also have some emotional connection to certainty, some reason to be upset that we cannot have it. Neither Spinoza nor Hume have anything useful to say about the present. No one can effectively live truly believing that anything they say is of any real import, and no one does.

faust

4

Perhaps, as soon as I posted it the site went down.

Anyway, I think that both ideas are two sides of the same coin.

Ever if you wiki both concepts then you can learn a little something.

5

faust,

I’m glad that you’re satisfied (ha) and thank you for your input.

What do you think is the allure of such philosophies?

6

Nietzsche will tell us that, to get to the bottom of any philosophy, look at the morality that it will support. While this may not be the entire story, it often is a large part of it.

Also, I think Spinoza was insane; loony; crackers. He was to rationalism what Hegel was to idealism. Fascinating, careful, brilliant, and wrong about everything. Just took it over the top and beyond.

Hume, like many philosophers, thought that bringing an idea to its logical conclusion was an accomplishment, and it is. But completing a task is worthwhile only if the task is worthwhile. Hume escaped any proof of God. Spinoza escaped any disproof. They were both attracted to the idea of certainty - even Hume, for he was certain that we cannot have certainty. Certainty is a feeling we have, and not to be taken too seriously by good philosophers.

Faust

7

The allure?
Isn’t doom the most amazing sight? Giving up is simply the next step.

I don’t like poetry and I don’t like philosophy. I don’t like TV and I don’t like porn. I don’t like religion, either.

Mind-tricks and artaficially crafted universal “laws” – are just another one of the thousand things that I don’t like, but I don’t like hate or anger either, so it’s not like I’m mad about it.
=)

Most of opinion is a twist & combination of fact, set in a direction for a reason and a will – that was someone else’s to begin with.

I believe that philosophy is **** compared to an unbiased and objective mind. I don’t value opinions even half as much as I usedto. Lots of people put higher value on what isn’t really important, but then the mind makes it important.

Damn, words fail me!
I don’t think anybody realizes what I already know.

Example:
A lump of gold.
What the hell does it matter? But society makes a large illusion, through demand or admiration, and suddenly there is a trick. Suddenly an inanimate lump becomes desirable, precious and valuable???
^
Think about that for a very long time,
and that same system cuts into your entire being. Because of this illusion being a large part of all minds in your culture, it’s almost impossible to actually get through the illusions. So many of our emotions react for no good reason, to the things that…

Forget it. Bye.

8

Okay, the hammer hit the nail that time.
Now apply that to the fame, the products, the shame, the ego, the faith, the news, the national opinion, the civilization.

9

Well done Faust - succinctly put.

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i know off topic but how would you extend your “certainty” perspective here to the “free-will” threads!

11

Hi, north. I will go on record about free will at some point.
“Determinism” and “free will” (the latter being a term I do not like to begin with) are metaphysical, and ultimately religious terms. No one searches for certainty more diligently (I should say “more desperately”) than metaphysicians. They will go to any length. Comical lengths, sometimes. Metaphysicians, in general, will take an idea to its “logical” conclusion, usually in a tragic misuse of logic, and invent “objects”. These objects, being the invention of the metaphysician, can do amazing things. Anything, really. As all good fiction can.

My general position is that we are free, within limits. That things are pretty much as they appear. That this is a religious question, in the end, and that philosophy has little to add, directly, at least. Think of the advice you would give your virgin daughter on prom night. A deterministic universe is not the one you’d want to send her out into on such a night. Lots of stuff is just not “meant to be”, despite what young girls so often think. Nor would you want to tell her, I presume, that she is totally free, without constraints. I realize that you might have different advice if you were her date. I do not consider the paradigm of determinism vs. free will to be a BFD (big filosophical deal). Just a comonsense, day-to-day, get by as you can issue.

The rest is fiction - neither true nor false in any way that can be used in a coherent and useful logical argument. Fiction truly is freedom.

faust

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Faust, I like your straight forward approach to posting. I look forward to reading more in the future.

Anyway, I’m curious about why this topic didn’t generate more responses. I was shocked when I came to the conclusion that “universal oneness” concepts are actually the brother of Nihilism.

Oh well, I’m glad I figured it out.

13

The problem here is that you think that because things are universally determined, therefore you should do nothing. That’s a leap that neither Spinoza, nor any determinism in general, would approve of you making.

Action is only determined or pointless only in relation to God or Nature. In relation to other, finite things, it can have meaning. What Spinoza is saying is that you shouldn’t place any UNIVERSAL signifigance in your actions. God or Nature is it’s own meaning and purpose.

Spinoza defines all pleasure and pain, and therefore all meaning and signifigance, as existin only in relation to oneself. Pleasure is the movement to a greater state of being, pain is the movement to a lower. One should do what is pleasureable and avoid what is painful, and find meaning in that.

To say that existence is ultimately meaningless is not the same as saying that there is no meaning IN existence. That is ultimately, I think, the point of Spinoza’s philosophy. That if you want meaning in life, and most people do, you have to define your own, and not look for a universal purpose by which to define yourself.

He’s not being tricky, either. He’s being meticulous. Spinoza was trying to create a metaphysical and ethical system that was logically sound and couldn’t be picked apart. The approach will appear mystifying to some but appeal to others. In order to read Spinoza well, I think, you can’t make any conclusions until you’ve followed him to his ultimate end.

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[quote=“faust”]
Yeah, Ad. Right on. Reading Spinoza is like reading Hume in that way. Except that Hume’s only goal was to justify his atheism.

[quote]

Probable,but highly not.I say that Hume and other empiricist in England at that time were working a movement of some sort to refute Descartes epistemological consequences.The continents of European philosophers were developing the principles from Descartes’s metaphysics.Spinoza was one of par excellence to name a few.

[quote]
If you read either, and your strongest response is “So what?”, then you are understanding what you read. To say that this world, or any other world, is the best of all possible worlds is nothing but gibberish. It is an utterance with no meaning. Even though it can be contained in a perfectly logical and understandable sentence. So much for sentences.

[quote]
Are you a 21st century reincarnation of Volataire? :laughing:

[quote]
Philosophy is not science.

[quote]
No,but some philosophers can use the tools of scientific method in some inquiries.

[quote]
Hume may have shown that we cannot predict the future with any certainty.

[quote]
Inductionism is flaw

[quote]
Neither Spinoza nor Hume have anything useful to say about the present. No one can effectively live truly believing that anything they say is of any real import, and no one does.

[quote]
Interesting that you mention Spinoza and Hume in together as they were the same person. =D>

faust

[quote]

15

To,the Alderian

I am having trouble with some of your statement of Spinoza’s doctrine is somewhat nihilistic.Since you say nihilism is the denial of all objective knowledges,how can Spinoza’s monism be nihilistic?

16

To Cartesian. All metaphysics is nihilism. By definition, then, so is all religion. Read all of Nietzsche and then report back to us. All of your questions will be satisfactorily answered.

I do not mean to imply that Hume and Spinoza were the same person. My means of expression must be as flawed as is induction. I mean to use Hume as another example of a life-negating philosopher, one who comes from a polar opposite of Spinoza, but who yields similar results in specific ways. Hume happened to be on my mind at the moment. I must have just read a post my Impenitent, who rarely fails to mention Hume.

By the way, I do not necessarily care what a philosopher’s stated intentions are and do not subscribe to reading them with the most generous interpretation, or the way they would most like to be read. I have heard that this is what is often taught in the schools. These are rules for the “publish or perish” crowd, and do not lend themselves to effective understanding, but rather to academic collegiality, the purpose for which they are designed. I care about what a philosopher actually does. His actual intentions, which may be different from his stated ones.

I stand by my statement that Hume was justifying his own atheism. Morality is the raison d’etre of philosophy, despite that it is often the most difficult element to disern. Every story has a moral, (sometimes) despite the overt intention of the storyteller.

faust

17

To Knox. Yep. Life has a meaning which resides solely in a fictional character we call “God”. That’s the “ultimate end”, as you put it. No nihilism there!

faust

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I’m not sure the principle of charity(reading arguments in their best possible light) is for the publish or perish crowd. If anything, it is employed by those honestly seeking answers - whoever comes up with those answers.

By contrast, publish or perishers tend to care very much who it is who comes up with ‘the answer’. Pettiness and so on do not go in hand with the principle of charity.

If I intend to propose an argument which shows X is Y, yet I actually manage to show A is B, then someone will be happy I showed A is B regardless of my intentions.

19

Exactly.

The concept of Oneness hides Nihilism behind the hope of completion.
Some think that to return to the primal source, to unite with the creator, to be One means they will retain their consciousness or even individuality or that they will become more through it.

Self-destruction precedes any unification, either through absorption or unification.
The self sacrifices itself or parts of itself to participate in another or with another. There’s always a compromise.

In fact the need for Oneness, the desire to belong, is a secret desire for self-nihilation. In a similar manner concepts of equalitarianism and compassion and altruism and love are all ways of self-absolution – a way of escaping self through the other.
The hope for completion implies the end of self, and the consciousness that makes it possible.
It is a death wish pretending to be the ecstasy of life.

We can see this behind many other human concepts.
The pursuit for happiness, the metaphor of paradise, the search for self, are all ways of seeking an end, a final repose.

I don’t remember who commented that at funerals we are not really mourning for the deceased but for ourselves who are left alive to persist without them.
In some traditions they celebrate at funerals. A more honest display of emotions focused on the deceased rather than with ourselves.

20

Two things here, one a reproach, the other, a concurrence.

First to the reproach. Your statement that unity or oneness is not understood as the dissolution of the self for the greater, is bitter. How would anyone who seeks singularity not realize that this is the “ultimate goal” or final outcome? That would seem a rather pointed context for those who desire returning, insidiously so. One who experiences the lower levels of this is quite certain to realize that being of self is, in actuality, a great deal more limiting. How do you justify it is not realized, in the generality you posted?

The agreement is in the fact you are correct, in that final unity is the complete destruction of the egoistic attachment of self and self actually, and an acceptance of assimilation or unification as being far superior to the perceived individuality, which appears in most religious text as the soul. Indeed, unity and nihilation are one in the same from alternate perspectives.