The Philosopher, the Heretic, the Jew and His Lovers: Spinoza

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

The Philosopher, the Heretic, the Jew and His Lovers: Spinoza REVS UP THE ENGINE: Mazya tweaks the nerve-racking action through a number of comically cunning devices The Philosopher, Yes, two potent strikes against “Love Burns.” Yet on the third pitch, Edna Mazya the Heretic, the Jew smacks the ball smartly out of the park. Again without revealing the plot, I’ll just say she pours on a series of episodes in which the cuckolded Ilan makes bad move and His Lovers after bad move, each time leaving the read- er crying frantically, “No, no, don’t do that How did Spinoza, one of the wildest and most unmanageable thinkers — oh, Lord — now what can possibly hap- of all time, become domesticated? pen?” Mazya moreover tweaks the action Benjamin Lazier heart. He is reason incarnate. He lacks pas- through a number of comically cunning sion and personality, or what Goldstein devices. One — which is so quintessen- PINOZA-BEAR IS CUTE. HE’S calls the “pounding pulse of subjectivity.” tially Israeli — is denying Ilan any priva- cuddly. He has a cassette player But her Spinoza does not feel this lack as cy. Our hero can do virtually nothing, even in his tummy. Touch his shiny, loss. He seeks it, as gain. He has set out sys- in the dead of night, without being red heart, and he will speak to tematically to purge every particularity, observed. One mild example is when he your disabled child about loss, every feeling, every contingency of circum- roots through the trash bins in his apart- Sgrief, fear, pain and nap time, tasks for stance that makes up his sense of who he is ment block to find something his wife has which he is specially trained. And for 150 in favor of a “view from eternity.” By tossed away. In doing so Ilan discovers he bucks, he’s yours. estranging ourselves from what most of us is being watched by two neighborhood Spinoza-Bear is but the latest stage in understand as most emphatically us, children who demand to know what he is the domestication of perhaps the most wild Spinoza thinks we achieve something more doing. Told he is looking for something, and unmanageable thinker in history. Wild, satisfying and true — proximity to the the children demand to know what it is. because Spinoza rebuffed all social entrap- divine. Spinoza calls it amor dei intellectu- Told what it is, the children demand to ment: Expelled from the Jewish community alis, the intellectual love of God. We might know why he must find it. Told why he of Amsterdam in 1656, he declined to call it ecstasy or ek-stasis, a “standing out- must find it, the children demand to help return, refused Christianity, and so lived a side” of the self. It is akin to mysticism, him look. And when the object — a preg- secular life before it was (institutionally) pursued not through ritual, not through hal- nancy testing kit — is found, the children possible to do so. demand to know the test results. And on it Unmanageable, because goes. Spinoza has been appropriated Betraying Spinoza: by just about everyone, but in The Renegade Jew IMILARLY, MAZYA GLEEFULLY incompatible ways and never Who Gave Us Modernity conjures dramatic conjunctions that for long: To judge by his By Rebecca Goldstein Swould drive anyone crazy. A major reception, he is both rationalist Schocken/Nextbook revelation occurs for Ilan and Naomi — the and mystic, materialist and 289 pp.; $20 sort of thing that will likely alter their pantheist, ascetic and hedonist, future forever — just as a horde of impor- philosopher and Jew. He is the tant dinner guests arrives. Ilan seethes with father of both liberal democra- secrets — but often in the company of his cy and the totalitarian state. He Conversation with Spinoza: best friend, a wily police detective in is Hegel and Marx, devil and A Cobweb Novel whom for reasons of plot Ilan dare not con- Christ, atheist and intoxicated By Goce Smilevski fide. And more than once, just as Ilan is with God. David Ben-Gurion (translated from the Macedonian about to take some fateful step, someone hoped to rescind his ban, Leo by Filip Korzenski) dies on him, and by doing so affects his Strauss to reinstate it. Even the Northwestern University Press fate profoundly. German dental association 152 pp.; $17 (paperback) The cover blurb compares “Love once felt obliged to put in a Burns” to certain darker works by Woody few good words for the vener- Allen. In fact, “Love Burns” would make a able Jewish heretic. lucinogens, but through reason. It will leave better Woody Allen movie than many a Rebecca Goldstein improvises on one of you transformed. recent Woody Allen movie. Meanwhile, it the standard themes of Spinoza interpreta- This, in the tiniest of nutshells, sums up makes for a terrific read. • tion in her book, “Betraying Spinoza: The one prominent theme of Spinoza’s “Ethics.” Renegade Jew Who Gave Us Modernity.” The book was published in 1677, but Contributing Editor Matt Nesvisky writes fre- Her Spinoza presents himself more as Tin posthumously, since its teachings spelled quently about books for The Report. Man than Spinoza-Bear. That is, he has no danger for its author. It denied a providen- THE JERUSALEM REPORT OCTOBER 16, 2006 55 BOOKS tial God, a transcendent God, a personal all sectarian forms of identity, Goldstein proved a boon. His doubt about one reli- God. It equated God instead with the active suggests, tackles the historical problem of gion predisposed him to have doubts and creative force in nature, not beyond it. Jewish suffering by rendering meaningless about them all. This led him in turn to If there is a Spinozistic slogan, it is this: the categories used to justify anti-Jewish reflect on the sort of political order best Deus sive natura. God, or nature. They are violence in the first place, the kind used to suited to protecting those who doubt, and one and same. For these reasons and others, classify Jews as “in” or “out” or somewhere to enabling those who do not to live Spinoza’s ideas threatened the monotheistic in between. A cynic might retort: Spinoza’s together in peace. Hence perhaps his orthodoxies, and invited the charge of pan- plan to save the Jews came at the cost theism, that all is divine. of whatever made them Jewish. The “Ethics” also cemented Spinoza’s Whatever the case, neither the reputation (among some, but by no means classifications nor the violence they all or most) as the coldest and most imperi- spawned were imposed exclusively ous of thinkers, given his suspicion of the by Christians. They were a fixture passions and the waywardness they produce also among the Portuguese Jews in — religious superstition for example, or Amsterdam, many of them former romantic love. Enter now Goldstein the marranos, and shaped Spinoza in psychoanalyst. What kind of heartbreak unexpected ways. He must have was so terrible to endure that its prospect known of Uriel da Costa, driven to led a man to protect himself by ripping his suicide by a community intolerant of own heart from his chest? That is the ques- his preference for Biblical over rab- tion Goldstein poses in her book. binic Judaism. Soon thereafter, To pose the question about the origins of Spinoza would bear the brunt of that Spinoza’s thought is already, Goldstein fury himself. But he would not plead thinks, to betray him. It presumes that for clemency. Instead, he embraced Spinoza’s counsel to transcend the particu- his ban, the story goes, as that which lar was itself prompted by the accidents of he would have chosen for himself. his birth, his home and his history, rather Goldstein recounts all this and more. than the product of pure deduction in the But she betrays Spinoza, she claims, style of a mathematical proof. Spinoza was by crafting a memoir of a Benedictus famous for pursuing philosophy more geo- indebted always to his Baruch, of a metrico, in the manner of geometry, and he philosopher who would always once remarked that he knew the truth of his remain a Jew. philosophy as he knew the sum of the In the process, Goldstein writes angles of a triangle. He asked after human another memoir — her own. She appetites as he did lines, planes and bodies. introduces us to Spinoza through the But would the truth of such a theorem be remonstrations of a teacher from her any less if its discovery or its need were Orthodox day school on the Lower born not of the mind but the heart? East Side of New York: the well- Goldstein fears it would. She sets out intentioned but hapless Mrs. nonetheless to discover the life pulsing Schoenfeld. Poor Mrs. Schoenfeld. between its lines. And so she reads the She warns against heresy. She coun- “Ethics” as an autobiography writ large. sels against the hubris of raising rea- Very large. She thinks of the “Ethics” as son above God. She despairs that one response to the heartbreak of Jewish Jews like Spinoza and Marx have history itself, and so we are treated to a done more for goyische philosophy romp through a thousand years: from the than the goyim. But in the act of pro- eighth century, when Muslims first con- tecting her charges, she corrupts them greatest legacy. Spinoza came down on quered chunks of Spain, to the flowering of instead. Or at least the ones like Goldstein, the side of liberal democracy, and to the Jewish culture under Muslim rule, to the who earned a PhD in goyische philosophy theocrats of his day committed to the efforts by Maimonides to reconcile Judaism at Princeton, and who takes some pleasure fusion of church and state he had this to with Aristotle, to the advent of Spanish kab- in correcting her erstwhile teacher with say: You are ultimi barbarorum — the balism, to the origins of the Inquisition, ide- what she since has learned.
Recommended publications
  • Leibniz, Bayle and the Controversy on Sudden Change Markku Roinila (In: Giovanni Scarafile & Leah Gruenpeter Gold (Ed.), Paradoxes of Conflicts, Springer 2016)
    Leibniz, Bayle and the Controversy on Sudden Change Markku Roinila (In: Giovanni Scarafile & Leah Gruenpeter Gold (ed.), Paradoxes of Conflicts, Springer 2016) Leibniz’s metaphysical views were not known to most of his correspondents, let alone to the larger public, until 1695 when he published an article in Journal des savants, titled in English “A New System of the Nature and Communication of Substances, and of the Union of the Soul and Body” (henceforth New System).1 The article raised quite a stir. Perhaps the most interesting and cunning critique of Leibniz’s views was provided by a French refugee in Rotterdam, Pierre Bayle (1647−1706) who is most famous for his Dictionnaire Historique et Critique (1697). The fascinating controversy on Leibniz’s idea of pre-established harmony and a number of other topics lasted for five years and ended only when Bayle died. In this paper I will give an overview of the communication, discuss in detail a central topic concerning spontaneity or a sudden change in the soul, and compare the views presented in the communication to Leibniz’s reflections in his partly concurrent New Essays on Human Understanding (1704) (henceforth NE). I will also reflect on whether the controversy could have ended in agreement if it would have continued longer. The New System Let us begin with the article that started the controversy, the New System. The article starts with Leibniz’s objection to the Cartesian doctrine of extension as a basic way of explaining motion. Instead, one should adopt a doctrine of force which belongs to the sphere of metaphysics (GP IV 478).
    [Show full text]
  • Teaching Plato in Palestine: Philosophy in a Divided World
    © Copyright, Princeton University Press. No part of this book may be distributed, posted, or reproduced in any form by digital or mechanical means without prior written permission of the publisher. 1 TEACHING PLATO IN PALESTINE Can philosophy save the Middle East? It can. This, at least, is the thesis of Sari Nusseibeh as I learn from a friend upon arriving in Israel in February 2006. Nusseibeh is not only a prominent Palestinian intellectual and the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s former chief repre- sentative in Jerusalem, but also a philosopher by training (and, I think, by nature, too). “Only philosophy,” the friend tells me he argued during the Shlomo Pines memorial lec- ture in West Jerusalem three years before (aptly titled “On the Relevance of Philosophy in the Arab World Today”). By the time I leave Israel, I’m convinced that he’s on to something. I am here to teach a seminar at Al-Quds University, the Palestinian university in Jerusalem, together with Nus- seibeh, who has been president of Al- Quds since 1995. My idea is to discuss Plato’s political thought with the students and then examine how medieval Muslim and Jewish philosophers built on this thought to interpret Islam and Judaism as philosophical religions. I hope to raise some basic questions about philosophy and its rela- For general queries, contact [email protected] Fraenkel.indb 3 2/17/2015 8:56:12 AM © Copyright, Princeton University Press. No part of this book may be distributed, posted, or reproduced in any form by digital or mechanical means without prior written permission of the publisher.
    [Show full text]
  • Borderline Personality Disorder
    Borderline Personality Disorder What is Borderline Personality Disorder? Borderline personality disorder is an illness marked by an ongoing pattern of varying moods, self-image, and behavior. These symptoms often result in impulsive actions and problems in relationships with other people. A person with borderline personality disorder may experience episodes of anger, depression, and anxiety that may last from a few hours to days. Recognizable symptoms typically show up during adolescence (teenage years) or early adulthood, but early symptoms of the illness can occur during childhood. National Institute of Mental Health What are the signs People with borderline personality disorder may and symptoms? experience mood swings and may display uncertainty about how they see themselves and their role in the world. As a result, their interests and values can change quickly. People with borderline personality disorder also tend to view things in extremes, such as all good or all bad. Their opinions of other people can also change quickly. An individual who is seen as a friend one day may be considered an enemy or traitor the next. These shifting feelings can lead to intense and unstable relationships. Other signs or symptoms may include: ♦ Efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment, such as rapidly initiating intimate (physical or emotional) relationships or cutting off communication with someone in anticipation of being abandoned ♦ A pattern of intense and unstable relationships with family, friends, and loved ones, often swinging from extreme closeness and love (idealization) to extreme dislike or anger (devaluation) ♦ Distorted and unstable self-image or sense of self ♦ Impulsive and often dangerous behaviors, such as spending sprees, unsafe sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, and binge eating.
    [Show full text]
  • Personality and Social Psychology: Towards a Synthesis
    Universität Potsdam Barbara Krahe´ Personality and social psychology: towards a synthesis first published in: Personality and social psychology : towards a synthesis / Barbara Krahe.´ - London [u.a.] : Sage, 1992. - VIII, 278 S., ISBN 0-8039-8724-2 Postprint published at the Institutional Repository of the Potsdam University: In: Postprints der Universitat¨ Potsdam Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe ; 121 http://opus.kobv.de/ubp/volltexte/2009/3830/ http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-38306 Postprints der Universitat¨ Potsdam Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe ; 121 Personality and Social Psychology Personality and Social Psychology Towards a Synthesis Barbara Krahe SAGE Publications London • Newbury Park • New Delhi © Barbara Krahe 1992 First published 1992 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without permission in writing from the Publishers. SAGE Publications Ltd 6 Bonhill Street London EC2A 4PU SAGE Publications Inc 2455 Teller Road Newbury Park, California 91320 SAGE Publications India Pvt Ltd 32, M-Block Market Greater Kailash - I New Delhi 110 048 British Library Cataloguing in Publication data Krahe, Barbara Personality and Social Psychology: Towards a Synthesis I. Title 302 ISBN 0 8039 8724 2 ISBN 0 8039 8725 0 pbk Library of Congress catalog card number 92-53776 Typeset by Photoprint, Torquay, Devon Printed in Great Britain by Biddies Ltd, Guildford, Surrey
    [Show full text]
  • Mind Body Problem and Brandom's Analytic Pragmatism
    The Mind-Body Problem and Brandom’s Analytic Pragmatism François-Igor Pris [email protected] Erfurt University (Nordhäuserstraße 63, 99089 Erfurt, Germany) Abstract. I propose to solve the hard problem in the philosophy of mind by means of Brandom‟s notion of the pragmatically mediated semantic relation. The explanatory gap between a phenomenal concept and the corresponding theoretical concept is a gap in the pragmatically mediated semantic relation between them. It is closed if we do not neglect the pragmatics. 1 Introduction In the second section, I will formulate the hard problem. In the third section, I will describe a pragmatic approach to the problem and propose to replace the classical non-normative physicalism/naturalism with a normative physicalism/naturalism of Wittgensteinian language games. In subsection 3.1, I will give a definition of a normative naturalism. In subsection 3.2, I will make some suggestions concerning an analytic interpretation of the second philosophy of Wittgenstein. In the fourth section, I will propose a solution to the hard problem within Brandom‟s analytic pragmatism by using the notion of the pragmatically mediated semantic relation. In the fifth section, I will make some suggestions about possible combinatorics related to pragmatically mediated semantic relations. In the sixth section, I will consider pragmatic and discursive versions of the mind-body identity M=B. In the last section, I will conclude that the explanatory gap is a gap in a pragmatically mediated semantic relation between B and M. It is closed if we do not neglect pragmatics. 2 The Hard Problem The hard problem in the philosophy of mind can be formulated as follows.
    [Show full text]
  • Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) Summary
    Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) Summary • The MBTI is a reliable and valid instrument that measures and categorizes your personality and behavior. It is not a test. There are no “right” or “wrong” answers. • Around 1940 a mother-daughter team (Katharine C. Briggs and her daughter Isabel Briggs Myers) developed this instrument to help people understand and use Carl Jung’s theory of psychological type preferences. • Swiss Psychologist, Carl Jung, (1875 – 1961) theorized that you can predict differences in people’s behavior if you know how they prefer to use their mind. According to Jung, we each have an inborn preference for using our mind in one of two different ways, in four different categories: Orientation to World Take in Information Make Decisions Take in Info. or Decide Extraverted Sensing Thinking Perceiving Energized by others Using five senses Logical, problem solvers Taking in information or or or or Introverted Intuition Feeling Judging Energized by ideas, Using gut or instincts Consider others, Organizing information emotions, memories compassionate and making decisions • There are a total of 16 possible “types” based on unique combinations of the preferences. • Four letters are used to represent a type, for example a person with preferences for Extraverted, Sensing, Thinking, Judging is called an ESTJ. • Each type has strengths and weaknesses. No type is better than another. • People can use this assessment tool to validate their preferences on each of the four dichotomies and understand the sixteen different personality
    [Show full text]
  • Eight PERSONALITY DISORDERS, NEUROTICISM, and LONELINESS
    Eight PERSONALITY DISORDERS, NEUROTICISM, AND LONELINESS 1. Neuroticism and Personality Disorders The lonely are frequently perceived by others and often even by themselves as being mentally sub-par and specifically neurotic in the sense of their manifest- ing ongoing emotional insecurity, fragility, and instability. When extreme, these traits require therapeutic intervention. Unfortunately, neurotics are often not the best at helping themselves find a remedy for the anxiety and other traits that ail them. Moreover, discovering and realizing such an antidote to their afflic- tion are by no means the same thing. The research of Daniel Peplau and Letitia Perlman has found that, first, the lonely “score higher” than the nonlonely in terms of neuroticism; second, that “loneliness is associated with poor mental health” in general; and, third, “structured psychiatric examinations” reveal the lonely as having more “men- tal symptoms needing treatment” than the nonlonely (1984, p. 20). Thomas A. Widiger and Timothy Trull state that those who rank above average in FFM Neuroticism: lack the emotional strength to simply ignore the hassles of everyday life and the emotional resilience to overcome the more severe traumas which are inevitable at some point within most persons’ lives. Which particular mental disorder they develop may be due in part to other contributing va- riables (for example, gender, social-cultural context, childhood experiences, genetic vulnerabilities, and additional personality traits) which either direct the person toward a preferred method of coping (for example, bulimic, dis- sociative, or substance use behavior) or reflect an additional vulnerability (for example, a sexual dysfunction). (1992, p. 355) These risk factors negatively impact lonelies’ ability to relate to others and leave them disgruntled with the quantity but especially the quality of their relationships.
    [Show full text]
  • The Effect of Personality on Motivation and Organisational Behaviour
    Psychology and Behavioral Science International Journal ISSN 2474-7688 Research Article Psychol Behav Sci Int J Volume 9 Issue 2 - May 2018 Copyright © All rights are reserved by Ashveen Nuckcheddy DOI: 10.19080/PBSIJ.2018.09.555760 The Effect of Personality on Motivation and Organisational Behaviour Ashveen Nuckcheddy* University of Northampton, UK Submission: May 03, 2018; Published: May 30, 2018 *Corresponding author: Ashveen Nuckcheddy, University of Northampton, UK, Tel: ; Email: Abstract This paper performs a literature review on the topic ‘the effect of personality on motivation and organisational behaviour.’ The main research questions under investigation were does personality affect motivation and organisational behaviour, and does personality affect organisational behaviour. As a literature review paper, it consulted already published sources on the topic from popular journals such as Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Journal of Research in Personality, Academy of management review, and Journal of Organizational Behaviour. The study then went ahead to perform a theoretical review of personality theories where the traits theory, the psychoanalytic, the humanistic, and the social cognitive theories were outlined. In the findings section, the review determined that personality andhas anwork influence ethics. onIt was motivation concluded through that personality personal emotional is an important stability, topic level that of aggression, should be consideredand extrovert by ormanagement
    [Show full text]
  • Brains and Behavior Hilary Putnam
    2 Brains and Behavior Hilary Putnam Once upon a time there was a tough- ism appeared to exhaust the alternatives. minded philosopher who said, 'What is all Compromises were attempted ('double this talk about "minds", "ideas", and "sen- aspect' theories), but they never won sations"? Really-and I mean really in the many converts and practically no one real world-there is nothing to these so- found them intelligible. Then, in the mid- called "mental" events and entities but 1930s, a seeming third possibility was dis- certain processes in our all-too-material covered. This third possibility has been heads.' called logical behaviorism. To state the And once upon a time there was a nature of this third possibility briefly, it is philosopher who retorted, 'What a master- necessary to recall the treatment of the piece of confusion! Even if, say, pain were natural numbers (i.e. zero, one, two, perfectly correlated with any particular three ... ) in modern logic. Numbers are event in my brain (which I doubt) that identified with sets, in various ways, de- event would obviously have certain prop- pending on which authority one follows. erties-say, a certain numerical intensity For instance, Whitehead and Russell iden- measured in volts-which it would be tified zero with the set of all empty sets, senseless to ascribe to the feeling of pain. one with the set of all one-membered sets, Thus, it is two things that are correlated, two with the set of all two-membered not one-and to call two things one thing sets, three with the set of all three-mem- is worse than being mistaken; it is utter bered sets, and so on.
    [Show full text]
  • Humanism: the Road from Athens to Jerusalem by DONNALYNN HESS
    Humanism: The Road From Athens to Jerusalem BY DONNALYNN HESS Over the past 30 years numerous Christian leaders have legitimately decried particular evils spawned by secular humanism; few, however, have provided a thoughtful analysis of how this philosophic system has been interwoven into God’s eternal plan. Viewing humanism in the context of sovereignty reveals that this recurring movement is not only a vivid record of fallen man’s impotence but also a divine roadmap that can be used to lead men to the cross. It is, therefore, valuable to reflect upon the significance of the historic signposts God has given. Such reflection can awaken a profound awe of God’s wisdom and compassion; it can also help believers discern (like Paul) how to guide “Athenians” from Mars Hill to Jerusalem. In the preface to Humanist Manifestos I and II (1973), Kurtz noted that “Humanism is a philosophical, religious, and moral point of view as old as human civilization itself” (p. 3). Although the thread of humanism does indeed run throughout the development of civilizations, there are specific reference points that are particularly helpful in discerning its impact on the western world. These reference points include the Greco-Roman period, the Renaissance, and the dawn of the modern age (20th century). Classical Humanism: A Precursor to the Incarnation The most important of the three epochs is the Greco-Roman period, for during this era the key tenets of humanism were formed. To fully understand the movement’s origin we must begin not with Socrates but with Thales, the pre-Socratic philosopher born in Miletos around 640 B.C.
    [Show full text]
  • Fiestas and Fervor: Religious Life and Catholic Enlightenment in the Diocese of Barcelona, 1766-1775
    FIESTAS AND FERVOR: RELIGIOUS LIFE AND CATHOLIC ENLIGHTENMENT IN THE DIOCESE OF BARCELONA, 1766-1775 DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Andrea J. Smidt, M.A. * * * * * The Ohio State University 2006 Dissertation Committee: Approved by Professor Dale K. Van Kley, Adviser Professor N. Geoffrey Parker Professor Kenneth J. Andrien ____________________ Adviser History Graduate Program ABSTRACT The Enlightenment, or the "Age of Reason," had a profound impact on eighteenth-century Europe, especially on its religion, producing both outright atheism and powerful movements of religious reform within the Church. The former—culminating in the French Revolution—has attracted many scholars; the latter has been relatively neglected. By looking at "enlightened" attempts to reform popular religious practices in Spain, my project examines the religious fervor of people whose story usually escapes historical attention. "Fiestas and Fervor" reveals the capacity of the Enlightenment to reform the Catholicism of ordinary Spaniards, examining how enlightened or Reform Catholicism affected popular piety in the diocese of Barcelona. This study focuses on the efforts of an exceptional figure of Reform Catholicism and Enlightenment Spain—Josep Climent i Avinent, Bishop of Barcelona from 1766- 1775. The program of “Enlightenment” as sponsored by the Spanish monarchy was one that did not question the Catholic faith and that championed economic progress and the advancement of the sciences, primarily benefiting the elite of Spanish society. In this context, Climent is noteworthy not only because his idea of “Catholic Enlightenment” opposed that sponsored by the Spanish monarchy but also because his was one that implicitly condemned the present hierarchy of the Catholic Church and explicitly ii advocated popular enlightenment and the creation of a more independent “public sphere” in Spain by means of increased literacy and education of the masses.
    [Show full text]
  • The Scientific Evidence for Materialism About Pains Draft 2-4-13
    The Scientific Evidence For Materialism About Pains Draft 2-4-13 ABSTRACT (added 5-5-14) This paper argues in unprecedented empirical and philosophical detail that, given only what science has discovered about pain, we should prefer the materialist hypothesis that pains are purely material over the dualist hypothesis that they are immaterial. The empirical findings cited provide strong evidence for the thesis of empirical supervenience: that to every sort of introspectible change over time in pains, or variation among pains at a time, there corresponds in fact a certain sort of simultaneous neural change over time, or variation at a time. The empirical supervenience of pain on the neural is shown in turn to favor the hypothesis that pains are, in a sense that is made precise, purely material. I Philosophical discussions of the mind-body problem have often taken pain as their leading example of a phenomenally conscious mental state (see, e.g., Kripke 1980). In this paper, I discuss the implications for the mind-body problem of what science has to say about pain—and I aspire to do so in a way that is accessible to interested non-philosophers. 1 Science has clearly taught us much about the etiology of pain. It has taught us that there are several different types of specialized nociceptive neurons, distinct from tactile sensors and proprioceptors, that are sensitive to noxious stimuli of different kinds, e.g., to thermal, mechanical, or chemical stimuli (Price 1999, 76-79). It has taught us that bundles of these neurons run first to the spine, where they synapse with neurons that then run, along several distinct pathways, to various regions of the brain, some of which project further neurons to the cortex (Price 1999, 98-107).
    [Show full text]