[2000 words] So... I've read a lot about it. And this is how I'd sum it up. Insofar as the world was created, God is that which created it.This takes, as its basic metaphor, the act of a person setting out to construct something specific, like a painting or a pot. Insofar as the world …
[900 words] Fundamentally, to be honest... I have no idea. Until further notice: if anyone has any concrete suggestions for what I can do with myself, and it's something I can just do, then there's a better than 50% chance I'll just do that. I wrote the Spinoza thing partly cus I'd been toying with …
[10,000 words] Introduction -- Book I -- Book II -- Book III -- Book IV We've finally arrived at the climax of the book! I won't keep you waiting any longer -- let's get right to it. Preface I pass, finally, to the remaining part of the Ethics, which concerns the means, or way, leading …
Continue reading Spinoza’s Ethics: Book V – Of Human Freedom
[13,000 words] OK! Let’s get right to it! Preface Man’s lack of power to moderate and restrain the affects, I call bondage.For the man who is subject to affects is under the control, not of himself, but of fortune, in whose power he so greatly is that often, though he sees the better for himself, …
Continue reading Spinoza’s Ethics, Part IV: Of Human Bondage
[12000 words] "Affects" are basically emotions. But I think keeping the term slightly technical will be useful. The first half of this piece will remain slightly abstract: "what the heck is actually happening?!!" kind of thing. The second half will finally get more concrete. We'll run through the nature of human emotions, with a bunch …
Continue reading Spinoza’s Ethics — Part III: Of the Affects
[200 words] I'm going to be spending December in a Zen Temple in the Gredos mountain range in Extremadura in Spain. By this point, I understand the basic notion I am not actually 'David Leon'. I am really just the Universe, pretending it's this monkey called 'David Leon' for a while. Essentially, it appears... for …
[500 words] It's all about doing your thing (ergon). And doing it well.Flourishing. "Eudaimonia". What your thing is depends on what you are. If you're an animal, it's eating enough food to survive, and growing. If you're a human, it's that, plus talking, thinking (...which, annoyingly, involves listening to other people) and... "creative work" is …
Continue reading Aristotle’s Self-Help Book — The Nichomachean Ethics SUMMARIZED
[9000 words] Oh God. What have I gotten myself into? No, it's OK David, it's OK -- you can do it. Alright. Lemme just paste in Spinoza's own introduction. I pass now to explaining those things which must necessarily follow from the essence of God, or the infinite and eternal being -- not, indeed, all …
[7000 words] OK. We gotta start somewhere, and I suppose this is it. So in the early 1600s, this guy called Descartes comes along and thinks about things and figures that basically everything can be boiled down to two substances. A substance is what something basically can be boiled down to. So, take a block …
[2000 words] The Ethics is a book which was published in 1677. It was written by Baruch, or Benedict, Spinoza. His first name means "Blessed". His surname means "Thorny", or, if you will, "spiky", or even "prickly". In other words: he's one of the most beautiful things to ever happen on this planet, but he …
