• Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Access to private conversations with other members.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

God is All and in All -

dybmh

דניאל יוסף בן מאיר הירש
Not necessarily - depending on how after lives are viewed. In relation to multiverse twin selves, I would think there's some quantum entanglement involved, but only to the extent of its opposites, and if not opposites, then same, which makes the process of growth and development equal. Afterlives, reincarnations, the born-again piece to the Christian concept of, involves new creations intact with lessons learned and more lessens to be learned as new creations. It's the balance, the straight path between truth and error, pleasure and pain, pleasant and unpleasant, and the vehicle that enables our continual development. The polar aspects of life that tutor us.
Agreed. If life does not end after physical life, then there is still reward and punishment. But without panentheism, that reward and punishment is limited.
 

vulcanlogician

Well-Known Member
I'm aware of Spinoza, although I've never read his work. One could simply say "life" and it would be equally true. Terms and definitions eh?

A Spinozist is going to be dissatisfied with what you said in your OP. A Spinozist is very wary of assigning "intention" (as we see it in humans and other animals) to God or nature in general.

To Spinoza, we can look around and see that God behaves in many ways that don't resemble acts committed by a human with intentions. So Spinoza concludes that we a prejudiced toward viewing God who as a being who is first and foremost involved in human concerns. Spinoza chalks this up to hubris and precedes from there.

On a side note, I've always found the supposed difference between pantheism and pan-en-theism to be rather silly and trivial. As if we really could sort out if God's totality extending beyond reality (as opposed to being completely identical with it) is something we could ever really figure out and develop accurate theories from. The correctness of pantheism over panentheism --or vice versa-- is something we will never resolve. And even if we did resolve it... who cares? I don't think anybody cares. Not pantheists, not panentheists, or even God himself.
 

The Sum of Awe

Brought to you by the moment that spacetime began.
A Spinozist is going to be dissatisfied with what you said in your OP. A Spinozist is very wary of assigning "intention" (as we see it in humans and other animals) to God or nature in general.

To Spinoza, we can look around and see that God behaves in many ways that don't resemble acts committed by a human with intentions. So Spinoza concludes that we a prejudiced toward viewing God who as a being who is first and foremost involved in human concerns. Spinoza chalks this up to hubris and precedes from there.

Very informative about Spinoza’s God model. So is Spinoza a natural pantheist then? In what sense was Spinoza calling the universe God - just in awe astonishment or is there something more that differentiates him from an atheist?
On a side note, I've always found the supposed difference between pantheism and pan-en-theism to be rather silly and trivial. As if we really could sort out if God's totality extending beyond reality (as opposed to being completely identical with it) is something we could ever really figure out and develop accurate theories from. The correctness of pantheism over panentheism --or vice versa-- is something we will never resolve. And even if we did resolve it... who cares? I don't think anybody cares. Not pantheists, not panentheists, or even God himself.

I agree it’s something unresolvable. Nobody really would care, but at least if the panentheists are right you could hope to have your prayers heard ;)
 

vulcanlogician

Well-Known Member
So is Spinoza a natural pantheist then? In what sense was Spinoza calling the universe God - just in awe astonishment or is there something more that differentiates him from an atheist?

There is very, very little that separates Spinoza from an atheist. His penchant for referring to the entirety of nature as "God" is the primary thing.

There is some scholarly debate about whether Spinoza really even was a pantheist-- as we understand the term today. He was accused of atheism in his time, and all of his writings were banned across Europe for their supposed atheism. That leads some scholars to hypothesize that Spinoza's pantheism was merely a ruse to conceal his atheism. Spinoza himself denied being an atheist. But (again) he did not live in a time when it was wise to profess atheism.

But there is some pushback to the notion that Spinoza was a complete atheist. Novalis called him a "God-intoxicated man." And others have poured over his work and (supposedly) found pieces of mystical thought.

Fun fact: The term "pantheism" was first coined to describe Spinoza's ideas. I guess the jury is out on whether that has anything to do with whether he was really a pantheist or not. Supposing that Spinoza was a pantheist, he was most certainly a natural pantheist, and not really any other kind.

Spinoza really didn't think that "awe or astonishment" were all that valuable of traits to cultivate as they pertain to God (or Nature). That's my own personal vision of pantheism that I arrived at chiefly through Thoreau.

Spinoza thought that emotions were distortions, and that they impair correct perception of the world. That isn't to say that Spinoza is "anti-emotion" or any kind of Vulcan. To the contrary he saw many emotions in a positive light. But he saw other emotions as forces which keep us bound to ignorance. Spinoza's theory of emotions is VAST and complicated. In his book, The Ethics, he spends quite a lot of time going through every conceivable emotion that humans have, starting with the natural cause of each emotion... ie how each particular emotion is aroused within us because of certain environmental conditions.... and then he proceeds to explain how each particular emotion alters our perception of the world in a specific way. He goes through love, hatred, anger, envy and other emotions one at a time... it's fascinating.

I gotta be careful not to ramble about Spinoza's theory of emotions. It is something I'm very, very interested in. If your curious, ask me anything. But I gotta stop here or I'll ramble.

PS:

I do want to also add that Spinoza thinks that an emotion is not a merely feeling. An emotion is a feeling that is always paired with a thought. In other words, Spinoza doesn't think a person can simply "BE happy." They can only be happy ABOUT something. Other philosophers, like William James, disagree with this idea. James thinks that an emotion is constituted by the feeling alone, and the thought that "corresponds" to the emotion is a side effect of us thinking about the thing that causes the feeling. ie. girl makes us feel love, when we feel that love we THEN have the thought about the girl because we understand that she is the cause of that feeling.

What's your personal take on emotion? Does it require a corresponding thought or is it "simply a feeling"?
 
Last edited:

The Sum of Awe

Brought to you by the moment that spacetime began.
There is very, very little that separates Spinoza from an atheist. His penchant for referring to the entirety of nature as "God" is the primary thing.

There is some scholarly debate about whether Spinoza really even was a pantheist-- as we understand the term today. He was accused of atheism in his time, and all of his writings were banned across Europe for their supposed atheism. That leads some scholars to hypothesize that Spinoza's pantheism was merely a ruse to conceal his atheism. Spinoza himself denied being an atheist. But (again) he did not live in a time when it was wise to profess atheism.

But there is some pushback to the notion that Spinoza was a complete atheist. Novalis called him a "God-intoxicated man." And others have poured over his work and (supposedly) found pieces of mystical thought.

Fun fact: The term "pantheism" was first coined to describe Spinoza's ideas. I guess the jury is out on whether that has anything to do with whether he was really an atheist or not. Supposing that Spinoza was a pantheist, he was most certainly a natural pantheist, and not really any other kind.

Spinoza really didn't think that "awe or astonishment" were all that valuable of traits to cultivate as they pertain to God (or Nature). That's my own personal vision of pantheism that I arrived at chiefly through Thoreau.

Spinoza thought that emotions were distortions, and that they impair correct perception of the world. That isn't to say that Spinoza is "anti-emotion" or any kind of Vulcan. To the contrary he saw many emotions in a positive light. But he saw other emotions as forces which keep us bound to ignorance. Spinoza's theory of emotions is VAST and complicated. In his book, The Ethics, he spends quite a lot of time going through every conceivable emotion that humans have, starting with the natural cause of each emotion... ie how each particular emotion is aroused within us because of certain environmental conditions.... and then he proceeds to explain how each particular emotion alters our perception of the world in a specific way. He goes through love, hatred, anger, envy one at a time... it's fascinating.

I gotta be careful not to ramble about Spinoza's theory of emotions. It is something I'm very, very interested in. If your curious, ask me anything. But I gotta stop here or I'll ramble.
I would be interested in hearing more about Spinoza's theory of emotions. What ones were the most interesting to you?
PS:

I do want to also add that Spinoza thinks that an emotion is not a merely feeling. An emotion is a feeling that is always paired with a thought. In other words, Spinoza doesn't think a person can simply "BE happy." They can only be happy ABOUT something. Other philosophers, like William James, disagree with this idea. James thinks that an emotion is constituted by the feeling alone, and the thought that "corresponds" to the emotion is a side effect of us thinking about the thing that causes the feeling. ie. girl makes us feel love, when we feel that love we THEN have the thought about the girl because we understand that she is the cause of that feeling.

What's your personal take on emotion? Does it require a corresponding thought or is it "simply a feeling"?
I had never thought about it that way before. I would say that it requires a corresponding thought. There are things that make us happy, things that make us unhappy, but until those 'things' (situations/objects/people/anything) trigger us then we will be emotionally neutral or even having an inertia-like effect from the last emotional trigger. Hence why sadness can linger until you remind yourself what you have to be grateful for.
 

vulcanlogician

Well-Known Member
I would be interested in hearing more about Spinoza's theory of emotions. What ones were the most interesting to you?

I warned you.

A lot of Spinoza's theory of emotions is interesting.

I suppose the thing we should remember from the outset is that Spinoza is a hard determinist. He does not think we freely choose our actions. We have no control over our states and actions.

But he DOES think that a human can be "free." They can be free in a mental sense. They can be free from errors in their perception of reality, and they can be free from certain emotions that keep them in a state of bondage. According to Spinoza, some emotions prevent us from thinking clearly and acting in the best way possible.

Spinoza thinks that the only person who is truly free is one who acts solely according to reason. That is to say with adequate ideas (and without inadequate ideas). We should be entirely logical and rational. Emotions are a distorting force in our correct perception of reality, according to Spinoza.

But Spinoza also thinks that we cannot (and should not) ignore our emotions. We should examine them and try to determine their cause. Being free of emotion is a process and not something we can accomplish by simply "deciding" to be guided solely by reason. That process is exceedingly difficult because our emotions are embedded in us. We can't wave them away with a magic wand.

But Spinoza thinks that certain emotions can actually help us along on our journey to mental freedom. Even though these certain emotions ARE ultimately distortions they are often necessary for us to escape the more "negative" kinds of mental states.

It's also important to realize that Spinoza doesn't really categorize emotions as "positive" or "negative." He examines them with clinical precision. Even though, paradoxically, he sees hatred as a force that imprisons us and love as a force that can free us from hatred... he doesn't arrive at that point through sentimentality. Quite the opposite. He used cold scientific calculus. Just examine his definition of love to see what I mean:

I've included an excerpt from the Ethics below. Don't read the whole thing. Just read the definitions he gives for love and hatred, so you can better understand what I said above. Skim the rest. I included the longer passage so you can get a better idea of what I meant when I said Spinoza analyzes emotions one by one in my previous post.

If anything, I wanted to convey how cold and calculating Spinoza is in his analysis. It's a good thing Spinoza never married because his wife would have been really disappointed to discover his definition of love. :D

VI. Love is pleasure, accompanied by the idea of an external cause.

Explanation—This definition explains sufficiently clearly the essence of love; the definition given by those authors who say that love is the lover's wish to unite himself to the loved object expresses a property, but not the essence of love; and, as such authors have not sufficiently discerned love's essence, they have been unable to acquire a true conception of its properties, accordingly their definition is on all hands admitted to be very obscure. It must, however, be noted, that when I say that it is a property of love, that the lover should wish to unite himself to the beloved object, I do not here mean by wish consent, or conclusion, or a free decision of the mind (for I have shown such, in II. xlviii., to be fictitious); neither do I mean a desire of being united to the loved object when it is absent, or of continuing in its presence when it is at hand; for love can be conceived without either of these desires; but by wish I mean the contentment, which is in the lover, on account of the presence of the beloved object, whereby the pleasure of the lover is strengthened, or at least maintained.

VII. Hatred is pain, accompanied by the idea of an external cause.

Explanation—These observations are easily grasped after what has been said in the explanation of the preceding definition (cf. also III. xiii. note).

VIII. Inclination is pleasure, accompanied by the idea of something which is accidentally a cause of pleasure.

IX. Aversion is pain, accompanied by the idea of something which is accidentally the cause of pain (cf. III. xv. note).

X. Devotion is love towards one whom we admire.

Explanation—Wonder (admiratio) arises (as we have shown, III. lii.) from the novelty of a thing. If, therefore, it happens that the object of our wonder is often conceived by us, we shall cease to wonder at it; thus we see, that the emotion of devotion readily degenerates into simple love.

XI. Derision is pleasure arising from our conceiving the presence of a quality, which we despise, in an object which we hate.

Explanation—In so far as we despise a thing which we hate, we deny existence thereof (III. lii. note), and to that extent rejoice (III. xx.). But since we assume that man hates that which he derides, it follows that the pleasure in question is not without alloy (cf. III. xlvii. note).

XII. Hope is an inconstant pleasure, arising from the idea of something past or future, whereof we to a certain extent doubt the issue.

XIII. Fear is an inconstant pain arising from the idea of something past or future, whereof we to a certain extent doubt the issue (cf. III. xviii. note).

Explanation—From these definitions it follows, that there is no hope unmingled with fear, and no fear unmingled with hope. For he, who depends on hope and doubts concerning the issue of anything, is assumed to conceive something, which excludes the existence of the said thing in the future; therefore he, to this extent, feels pain (cf. III. xix.); consequently, while dependent on hope, he fears for the issue. Contrariwise he, who fears, in other words doubts, concerning the issue of something which he hates, also conceives something which excludes the existence of the thing in question; to this extent he feels pleasure, and consequently to this extent he hopes that it will turn out as he desires (III. xx.).



Also, I apologize for insinuating that pan-en-theism is silly or trivial. I didn't actually realize that you identified as a panentheist. Did you recently change your religious descriptor? Or did I just neglect to notice? Anyway, sorry if my comments before came off as rude.

I think panentheism is a valid halfway point between pantheism and theism. But to me, what matters is if God is an intelligent self-creating, self-moving entity with intelligence.

Is there a God (in a classical theist conception) or not? I tend to think there isn't. But the important thing is to figure that out. Compared to that question, which I see as highly important... the issue of panentheism vs pantheism seems a bit trivial. We can discuss it if you wish. I am a bit curious why specifically panentheism appeals to you. I mean, why panentheism over atheism or theism?
 

vulcanlogician

Well-Known Member
I had never thought about it that way before. I would say that it requires a corresponding thought. There are things that make us happy, things that make us unhappy, but until those 'things' (situations/objects/people/anything) trigger us then we will be emotionally neutral or even having an inertia-like effect from the last emotional trigger. Hence why sadness can linger until you remind yourself what you have to be grateful for.

We tend to agree then. I tend to like Spinoza's idea that a corresponding thought is required. Otherwise we just have a physiological sensation.

One example is someone stepping on our foot, and we briefly become angry with them. Even though moments later, we realize that the person stepped on our foot accidentally... we (at first) experience a moment of anger at the person who stepped on our foot and hurt us.

The pain we feel in our foot isn't identical with anger. If we were spontaneously to experience the same pain in our foot while sitting alone watching TV, we wouldn't experience anger. We would simply say "ouch" and wonder why our foot hurts.

But when a PERSON steps on our foot, we may have a thought like "that a-hole wasn't watching where he was going!" And THAT (paired with the experience of pain) is what produces anger. Spinoza has some solid reasoning going on.

But the James camp has some good replies to Spinoza's arguments.

I'm not sure if I'm 100% convinced that an emotion requires a thought. I'm only like 83% convinced. One problem is that emotions can arise in us and we have zero understanding of them sometimes. Emotion has a spontaneity about it that pure thinking does not. Sometimes, emotions arise in us and we do not understand them. But how can that be in Spinoza's model? Do we not understand our own thought? How can that be?

So, while I tend to agree with you and Spinoza, I think James has some interesting counterexamples.
 

Ella S.

Dispassionate Goth
@Ella S. What's your take on the emotion/corresponding thought situation?
I do think there's a difference between our feelings or stirrings and the way we react to them. The Stoic concept of emotion specifically refers to the thoughts that give rise to our feelings and the way we think about them.

I have struggled with alexithymia, meaning that I have difficulty with consciously processing my feelings and understanding them. Importantly, notice how there's a different etymology between the words "alexithymia" and "apathy." Apathy is when you don't have emotion. Alexithymia is when you lack the vocabulary to describe feelings, and thus cannot fully understand them.

This difference between thymos and pathos is important in the Stoic texts, too. I think our modern understanding of "emotion" has become too broad to be useful. These days, "attentive," "focused," "bored," "overwhelmed," "confused," and even "motivated" are all considered emotions, but if they are emotions then computers have emotions, too. These would never have been considered a part of either thymos (feelings) or pathos (emotions).

It seems that the modern notion of emotion is informed by an effort to carefully catalog every single state of mind a person can have. What next, will dreaming be an emotion? Is sleepy an emotion? Is hungry an emotion? This is a problem that I had when trying to understand my own emotional experiences; what even counts as an emotion? What do we mean by that? Apparently, psychologists have trouble answering this question themselves, with several different competing models of emotion, none of which have gained consensus acceptance.

So I think the answer is that we should define emotion pragmatically. What is the context in which we need the word "emotion" to refer to something? I'll tell you right now, just because I lack "warmth" in my interpersonal relationships, and because I tend to speak in a monotone and wear a blank face, people have said that I lack emotion. Do I really lack emotion, though? Clearly not if motivation and attention are being considered emotions.

In the context of Stoic philosophy, emotion plays a very particular role. It's not the feeling itself, but when the feeling is combined with a certain reaction or attitude. It's correcting these reactions and attitudes that allow the Stoic sage to be "without emotion." Yet living without emotion is essentially impossible given the broad, ambiguous connotation the modern use of the word "emotion" often implies. Yet the Stoic goal of apatheia is not unattainable, and while I am not in a constant state of apatheia I have indeed reached it and been able to spend significant amounts of time in it, which gets better with practice.

You've sold me on giving a careful read through Spinoza's Ethics, though. I've wanted to return to that era of philosophy for awhile, to round out my understanding of it, and this is something I'm interested in. I'm not making it a high priority, but I will get around to it. It does seem to me like Spinoza goes a bit beyond merely defining emotion in a pragmatic sense and goes into trying to describe how it functions in ways that I think most psychologists studying the topic today would disagree with. I think his approach to emotion is the approach of a natural philosopher, and thus psychologists (as scientists) are the ones who continue that work in the modern day; I don't think we would get very far in our understanding of these empirical realities through philosophy alone.
 

vulcanlogician

Well-Known Member
You've sold me on giving a careful read through Spinoza's Ethics, though.
If you have some spare cash, you can pick up The Road to Inner Freedom for like 8 bucks. I recommend that as a good introductory work, and it is not an independently authored introduction to Spinoza's Ethics. It is a collected rearrangement of passages from the Ethics all in Spinoza's own words. It's a great primer, even if you're just doing a reread.

I think his approach to emotion is the approach of a natural philosopher, and thus psychologists (as scientists) are the ones who continue that work in the modern day; I don't think we would get very far in our understanding of these empirical realities through philosophy alone.
Spinoza is unofficially the father of cognitive therapy. A highly successful modality in contemporary therapeutic psychotherapy.

I agree. "Philosophy alone" kinda sucks in getting us very far knowledge-wise (compared to psychology or any of the sciences). But if "philosophy alone" didn't exist somewhere in our imagination, we probably wouldn't have discovered how compelling empiricism is in the first place.
 

metis

aged ecumenical anthropologist
If you have some spare cash, you can pick up The Road to Inner Freedom for like 8 bucks. I recommend that as a good introductory work, and it is not an independently authored introduction to Spinoza's Ethics. It is a collected rearrangement of passages from the Ethics all in Spinoza's own words. It's a great primer, even if you're just doing a reread.


Spinoza is unofficially the father of cognitive therapy. A highly successful modality in contemporary therapeutic psychotherapy.

I agree. "Philosophy alone" kinda sucks in getting us very far knowledge-wise (compared to psychology or any of the sciences). But if "philosophy alone" didn't exist somewhere in our imagination, we probably wouldn't have discovered how compelling empiricism is in the first place.
Spinoza is top shelf all the way, imo, and my wife & I visited the synagogue he used to attend but got kicked out of when we were in Amsterdam in 1998.
 
Top