Böcker av Benedict de Spinoza

First published in a posthumous edition of 1677, this work by Spinoza is a systematic attempt to work out the nature of God, the relation between mind and body, human psychology, and the best way to live.

According to Spinoza, God is Nature and Nature is God. First published by his friends after his death, the Ethics uses the methods of Euclid to describe a single entity, properly called both 'God' and 'Nature', of which mind and matter are two manifestations. Spinoza regarded ethics as a rational system corresponding to the rational nature of the universe and employed a deductive method derived from Euclidean geometry to show that the validity of ethical ideas can be demonstrated by a mathematical style argument. His conclusion: to be guided by reason is to live freely, motivated by love and goodwill rather than fear or hatred.Ethics is undoubtedly Spinoza's greatest work - an elegant, fully cohesive cosmology derived from first principles, providing a coherent picture of reality, and a guide to the meaning of an ethical life, it defines in turn the nature of God, the mind, the emotions, human bondage to the emotions, and the power of understanding - moving from a consideration of the eternal, to speculate upon humanity's place in the natural order, the nature of freedom and the path to attainable happiness. A powerful work of elegant simplicity, the Ethics is a brilliantly insightful consideration of the possibility of redemption through intense thought and philosophical reflection.

The book is perhaps the most ambitious attempt to apply the method of Euclid in philosophy. Spinoza puts forward a small number of definitions and axioms from which he attempts to derive hundreds of propositions and corollaries, such as "When the Mind imagines its own lack of power, it is saddened by it", "A free man thinks of nothing less than of death", and "The human Mind cannot be absolutely destroyed with the Body, but something of it remains which is eternal." Spinoza argues through propositions. He holds their conclusion is merely the necessary logical conclusion from combining the provided Definitions and Axioms. He starts with the proposition that "there cannot exist in the universe two or more substances having the same nature or attribute." He follows this by arguing that objects and events must not merely be caused if they occur, but be prevented if they do not. By a logical contradiction, if something is non-contradictory, there is no reason that it should not exist. Spinoza builds from these starting ideas.

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Benedictus de Spinoza's ground-breaking philosophy made him a controversial figure of 17th century Rationalism and a major influence in the Enlightenment that followed. Spinoza developed contentious ideas from an early age, resulting in his expulsion from Amsterdam's Jewish community when he was only twenty-three. Christian orthodoxy likewise repudiated his philosophy and the Catholic Church later issued a ban on all his writings. Undeterred and unrepentant, Spinoza the outcast went on to explore notions of God, man, the universe and reality, an intellectual journey that culminated in his magnum opus, Ethica, which he wrote between 1661 And 1675. This was a metaphysical analysis so radical that he was forced to have it published after his death. The intention behind the Ethics is to demonstrate that it is possible for man to attain a good life and experience "blessedness" or knowledge of God. Inspired by Cartesian rigour, Spinoza employs Euclid's step-by-step logic to prove his various propositions, signing off each proof with an assured "Q.E.D." flourish. The five-part work addresses the nature of God and concludes that He is intrinsic to the universe rather than outside of it - and is certainly not a personal god in the orthodox sense. The treatise then proceeds to dissect the human mind and to explore the notion of free will and of good and evil. This is followed by a detailed analysis of the origin and strength of various emotions and the way in which they enslave man. In the final part he reveals how we can free ourselves of these emotional manacles by fully understanding how they work and by distinguishing between those that are harmful and those that are useful. For Spinoza, reason is the sole means to this end. It is no easy task, he warns, and few will succeed - "But all things excellent are as difficult as they are rare."

The Ethics: (Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata) Translated From The Latin By R. H. M. ElwesThis book is a result of an effort made by us towards making a contribution to the preservation and repair of original classic literature.In an attempt to preserve, improve and recreate the original content, we have worked towards:1. Type-setting & Reformatting: The complete work has been re-designed via professional layout, formatting and type-setting tools to re-create the same edition with rich typography, graphics, high quality images, and table elements, giving our readers the feel of holding a 'fresh and newly' reprinted and/or revised edition, as opposed to other scanned & printed (Optical Character Recognition - OCR) reproductions.2. Correction of imperfections: As the work was re-created from the scratch, therefore, it was vetted to rectify certain conventional norms with regard to typographical mistakes, hyphenations, punctuations, blurred images, missing content/pages, and/or other related subject matters, upon our consideration. Every attempt was made to rectify the imperfections related to omitted constructs in the original edition via other references. However, a few of such imperfections which could not be rectified due to intentional\unintentional omission of content in the original edition, were inherited and preserved from the original work to maintain the authenticity and construct, relevant to the work.We believe that this work holds historical, cultural and/or intellectual importance in the literary works community, therefore despite the oddities, we accounted the work for print as a part of our continuing effort towards preservation of literary work and our contribution towards the development of the society as a whole, driven by our beliefs. We are grateful to our readers for putting their faith in us and accepting our imperfections with regard to preservation of the historical content. HAPPY READING!

The book is perhaps the most ambitious attempt to apply the method of Euclid in philosophy. Spinoza puts forward a small number of definitions and axioms from which he attempts to derive hundreds of propositions and corollaries, such as "When the Mind imagines its own lack of power, it is saddened by it", "A free man thinks of nothing less than of death", and "The human Mind cannot be absolutely destroyed with the Body, but something of it remains which is eternal."According to Spinoza, God is Nature and Nature is God. This is his Pantheism. In his previous book, Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, Spinoza discussed the inconsistencies that result when God is assumed to have human characteristics. In the third chapter of that book, he stated that the word "God" means the same as the word "Nature". He wrote: "Whether we say ... that all things happen according to the laws of nature, or are ordered by the decree and direction of God, we say the same thing." He later qualified this statement in his letter to Oldenburg by abjuring Materialism. Nature, to Spinoza, is a metaphysical Substance, not physical matter. In this posthumously published book Ethics, he equated God with nature by writing "God or Nature" four times."...For Spinoza, God or Nature-being one and the same thing- is the whole, infinite, eternal, necessarily existing, active system of the universe within which absolutely everything exists. This is the fundamental principle of the Ethics..

In this attempt to apply Euclid's methods to philosophy, Spinoza develops a deductive system based on his conception of existence as a vast unity and on psychological insights of great depth.

This book has been deemed as a classic and has stood the test of time. The book has been considered by academicians and scholars of great significance and value to literature. This forms a part of the knowledge base for future generations.

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