Books Should Be Free Loyal Books Free Public Domain Audiobooks & eBook Downloads |
|
The Philosophy of Spinoza By: Benedictus de Spinoza (1632-1677) |
---|
![]()
THE PHILOSOPHY OF SPINOZA
EDITED BY
JOSEPH RATNER
TUDOR PUBLISHING COMPANY Printed in the United States of America
PREFACE
Selections usually need no justifications. Some justification, however,
of the treatment accorded Spinoza's Ethics may be necessary in this
place. The object in taking the Ethics as much as possible out of the
geometrical form, was not to improve upon the author's text; it was to
give the lay reader a text of Spinoza he would find pleasanter to read
and easier to understand. To the practice of popularization, Spinoza,
one may confidently feel, would not be averse. He himself gave a short
popular statement of his philosophy in the Political Treatise . The lay reader of philosophy is chiefly, if not wholly, interested in
grasping a philosophic point of view. He is not interested in highly
meticulous details, and still less is he interested in checking up the
author's statements to see if the author is consistent with himself. He
takes such consistency, even if unwarrantedly, for granted. A continuous
reading of the original Ethics , even on a single topic, is impossible.
The subject matter is coherent, but the propositions do not hang
together. By omitting the formal statement of the propositions; by
omitting many of the demonstrations and almost all cross references; by
grouping related sections of the Ethics (with selections from the
Letters and the Improvement of the Understanding ) under sectional
headings, the text has been made more continuous. It is the only time,
probably, dismembering a treatise actually made it more unified. In an Appendix, the sources of the selections from the Ethics are
summarily indicated. It would be a meaningless burden on the text to
make full acknowledgments in footnotes. For the same reason, there has
been almost no attempt made to show, by means of the conventional
devices, the re arrangements and abridgements that have been made. Every
care has been taken not to distort in any way the meaning of the text.
And that is all that is important in a volume of this kind. Wherever possible Spinoza's own chapter headings have been retained; and
some of the sectional headings have either been taken from, or have been
based upon expressions in the text. It would have been more in keeping
with contemporary form to use the title On Historical Method or The
New History instead of Of the Interpretation of Scripture ; a chapter
on Race Superiority would sound more important than one on The
Vocation of the Hebrews ; but such modernizing changes were not made
because the aim has been to give the reader a text as faithful to the
original as the character of this volume would allow. The selections have been taken from Elwes' translation of the Tractatus
Theologico Politicus , A Political Treatise and the Improvement of
the Understanding ; and from White's translation of the Ethics . These
translations are no longer in copyright and hence it was not necessary
to secure permission from the publishers to use them. Nonetheless,
grateful acknowledgment is their just due. White, in his translation, uses, not altogether without reason, the
stilted term "affect" instead of the natural English term "emotion."
"Affect" is closer to the Latin and it more clearly indicates the
metaphysical status of the emotions as "modes" or "affectiones" of
Substance. Still, practically no one has followed White in his usage.
The reasons are not difficult to discover. Besides being a stilted term,
having no legitimate English status, "affect" very often makes the text
extremely obscure, even unintelligible to one who has no antecedent
knowledge of it, because besides having also its ordinary English
meaning, "affect" is used by White to mean "mode" or "modification"
("affection") as well... Continue reading book >>
|
eBook Downloads | |
---|---|
ePUB eBook • iBooks for iPhone and iPad • Nook • Sony Reader |
Kindle eBook • Mobi file format for Kindle |
Read eBook • Load eBook in browser |
Text File eBook • Computers • Windows • Mac |
Review this book |
---|