Workshop: "Spinoza and the politics of sustainability" Beth Lord Thursday, May 19, 11am - 1pm University of Western Sydney, Bankstown Campus Building 3, Room G.27 (library of the Centre for Citizenship and Public Policy)
In this workshop we will focus on Spinoza's Ethics, Part IV, Proposition 37: "The good which every man who pursues virtue aims at for himself he will also desire for the rest of mankind, and all the more as he acquires a greater knowledge of God." After explaining the context of the proposition and the meaning of the terms, we can critically discuss its implications for any or all of the following, depending on people's interests: politics, law, religion, issues of similitude/ difference, gender, ethics/ morality, animal ethics, environmental ethics, Spinoza's relation to Hobbes' social contract theory, Spinoza's relation to Kantian moral autonomy, Spinoza as rationalist, Spinoza and the "radical Enlightenment." Workshop Reading: Baruch Spinoza, Ethics - Read Part IV. If you have time and interest, read as much as you can of the other Parts. [I can forward by request the entire part IV as a PDF] Suggestions for further reading: Gilles Deleuze, Spinoza: Practical Philosophy (City Lights, 1988) - excellent introduction to ethical, social and political themes in Spinoza's Ethics Etienne Balibar, Spinoza and Politics (Verso, 1998) - another very accessible book on this topic Beth Lord, Spinoza's Ethics: An Edinburgh Philosophical Guide (Edinburgh University Press, 2010) - introduction to reading the Ethics, designed for first-time readers Genevieve Lloyd (ed.), Spinoza: Critical Assessments, 4 vols. (Routledge, 2001) - essays on a variety of topics, including animals, environmental ethics, politics, religion, historical context, etc. Beth Lord (University of Dundee) is the author of Kant and Spinozism (2010), and Spinoza's Ethics (Edinburgh UP, 2010). ________________________________ Roundtable on Beth Lord's Kant and Spinozism: Transcendental Idealism and Immanence from Jacobi to Deleuze Participants: Andrew Benjamin (Monash University) and Simon Duffy (University of Sydney) Respondent: Beth Lord Thursday, May 19, 2-3.30pm University of Western Sydney, Bankstown Campus Building 3, Room G.27 (library of the Centre for Citizenship and Public Policy) Spinoza was "re-discovered" in the twentieth century through Althusser and Deleuze's interpretations. Within this "post-structuralist" context, Spinoza was seen to offer an alternative to the dialectic. Thus, Spinoza has mostly been interpreted through his reception after Kant, for instance, in the philosophy of Hegel. Beth Lord shows in that the background to this post-Kantian reception is crucial in understanding Spinoza's reception in idealism and romanticism. In the late eighteenth century, several thinkers attempted to fuse Kant's transcendental idealism with Spinoza's philosophy of immanence. These 'Spinozistic' readings of Kant had a profound influence on the development of his theories of nature and teleology in the Critique of Judgment. By presenting this background, Lord provides a broader and illuminating basis for grasping Spinoza's influence in modern thought. - - - - - - - - - Dimitris Vardoulakis University of Western Sydney School of Humanities and Languages Bankstown Campus, 7.G.11 Locked Bag 1797 Penrith, NSW 2751 AUSTRALIA tel: +61 2 9772 6808
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