Something about Spinoza (1632 - 1677)

"Spinoza was probably the first person in European thought to introduce the idea that discovering what the hidden sources of your feelings and actions are will in some significant sense be liberating .........It is liberating because it puts you at one with yourself. It frees you from the frustration - and therefore from the rage and unhappiness to which frustration gives rise - induced by being at the mercy of forces you do not understand. It leads to acceptance, and that in turn to a lack of feelings of constraint, and this greatly increases your happiness - indeed, it is the secret of how to be happy. This thought has cropped up again and again in different guises ever since. For instance, it is central to the ideas of Freud and psychoanalysis."

From
"The Great Philosophers."
by Bryan Magee.
pp: 105-106.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Postmodernism - a summary.

Image
  P ostmodernism is mostly just a form of artistic criticism, but conservative intellectuals are constantly attacking it these days. Liberals are perplexed by the attacks, if they think about them at all. What the heck is going on? On the right side of the political spectrum (by most standards), we have statements like these: “Postmodernism, in many ways — especially as it’s played out politically — is the new skin that the old Marxism now inhabits.” — Jordan Peterson “Obama is the first postmodern president.” — Ben Shapiro “These folks form the current Far Left, including those who would be described as communists, socialists, anarchists, Antifa, as well as social justice warriors (SJWs). These are all very different groups, but they all share a postmodernist ethos.” — Michael Aaron “Between the Carybde of pseudo-empiricism and the Scylla of postmodernism.” — Nassim Nicholas Taleb “Since the 1970s, under the guise of postmodernism, we’ve seen the rapid expansion of identity politi...
Read more

Some prayers:

 Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, please bless and protect my wife, Melanie, and her children (my step children) Jarod, Kristy and Tiffany......please bless and protect them, Lord.
Read more