Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-p566r Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-28T23:41:54.147Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 6 - The Life of Reason

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2022

Get access

Summary

I’d like now to turn to an issue which is fundamental to Spinoza's project, namely showing how the life of reason is possible. Demonstrating this is the goal of the last part of the Ethics. Remember that the identity of the body, which is the object of a given idea, presupposes the idea of which it is the object, just as much as does the identity of the idea presuppose its extended object. It's quite important to realise this in thinking in connection with what Spinoza says in Part IV about the life of reason.

As we have seen, the notion of virtue is defined primarily in terms of the powers of an individual, so that a man's virtue is identical with his powers. This leads to a certain egocentrism in both Spinoza's psychology and his ethics. Yet, at the same time, Spinoza does seem to want to have the word ‘virtue’ carry ethical force. He wants to retain the notion of a virtuous life, so that his idea is that the man is, as it were, living a virtuous life insofar as he is developing his proper virtues, in other words: his proper powers.

Now, what that amounts to depends entirely on what conception you have of the identity of him whose virtue is in question. A lot of Spinoza's discussion does give the impression that the identity in question is physical, especially in the early stages, for example, in Part II where there is that long quasiphysiological digression concerning the nature of the human body. But there is another strand in Spinoza's thinking – on which the identity of a human body isn't to be conceived on a biological model. It isn't that which a doctor would call the same living body from birth to death which constitutes what Spinoza would call ‘the body’ of a given man, the man whose mind is the idea of that body. No – as I understand Spinoza, a man's identity is to be understood in terms of a certain coherence in the way that he lives.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Anthem Press
Print publication year: 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×