Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'On Metaphysics (frags)' and 'Spinoza's Ethics'

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4 ideas

1. Philosophy / B. History of Ideas / 5. Later European Thought

21855	Only in the 1780s did it become acceptable to read Spinoza [Lord]
	Full Idea: It was not until the 1780s that it became acceptable to read the works of Spinoza, and even then it was not without a frisson of danger.
	From: Beth Lord (Spinoza's Ethics [2010], Intro 'Who?')
	A reaction: Hence we hear of Wordsworth and Coleridge reading him with excitement. So did Kant read him?

13. Knowledge Criteria / E. Relativism / 2. Knowledge as Convention

1556	By nature people are close to one another, but culture drives them apart [Hippias]
	Full Idea: I regard you all as relatives - by nature, not by convention. By nature like is akin to like, but convention is a tyrant over humankind and often constrains people to act contrary to nature.
	From: Hippias (fragments/reports [c.430 BCE]), quoted by Plato - Protagoras 337c8

15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 10. Conatus/Striving

21866	Hobbes and Spinoza use 'conatus' to denote all endeavour for advantage in nature [Lord]
	Full Idea: 'Conatus' [translated as 'striving' by Curley] is used by early modern philosophers, including Thomas Hobbes (a major influence of Spinoza), to express the notion of a thing's endeavour for what is advantageous to it. It drives all things in nature.
	From: Beth Lord (Spinoza's Ethics [2010], p.88)
	A reaction: I think it is important to connect conatus to Nietzsche's talk of a plurality of 'drives', which are an expression of the universal will to power (which is seen even in the interactions of chemistry). Conatus is also in Leibniz.

26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 2. Natural Purpose / c. Purpose denied

5990	Theophrastus doubted whether nature could be explained teleologically [Theophrastus, by Gottschalk]
	Full Idea: Theophrastus questioned Aristotle's teaching on the extent to which teleological explanations could be applied to the natural world.
	From: report of Theophrastus (On Metaphysics (frags) [c.320 BCE]) by H.B. Gottschalk - Aristotelianism
	A reaction: It is interesting to see that Aristotle's own immediate successor had doubts about teleology. We usually assume that the ancients were teleological, and this was rejected in the seventeenth century (e.g. Idea 4826).