Donovan's Spinoza Blog-New!

I decided to start a separate blog for our Spinoza studies.  The following is the same as what I sent before-I'm excited about the prospect of sharing this study with friends across the country and around the globe. ==========

Dear friends:  I'm going to begin today a study of Spinoza's "Improvement of the Understanding." How far it will proceed, and at what pace, I don't know!   Obviously, you may read these occasional installments, or not.  I hope you will.  If we have been friends, I ask that you take this journey with me to the end, for friendship's sake, even though it is going to be difficult.  Please forward the work to anyone else you think might be interested.  This will be something of a "primer" for some of Spinoza's basic ideas.  Einstein devoutly loved Spinoza, and it is widely known that Einstein proclaimed his belief in "Spinoza's God."  What that means, we may never know.  My main purpose in writing this commentary is to find out if Spinoza has any suggestions for things we can do to help ourselves out of this awful predicament of confusion.  I have savored his words again and again, yet I still find new meanings.  Let's dig in!  I will separate Spinoza's text from my comments by a series of 10 "equals" signs thus: ========== [15] (1) We must seek the assistance of Moral Philosophy [d] and the Theory of Education; further, as health is no insignificant means for attaining our end, we must also include the whole science of Medicine, and, as many difficult things are by contrivance rendered easy, and we can in this way gain much time and convenience, the science of Mechanics must in no way be despised. ========== Okay, we need to look to our health (ouch!) and try to keep ourselves free from moral quagmires.  Need I explain?  For Spinoza, "Good" is what helps us get free and happy, "Evil" is what hinders this.  Of course, he wants us to adopt his ideas of what happiness is, which in essence is the knowledge of God, the wide awakening of our spiritual nature.  Obviously, machines can make our lives easier if we use them wisely. ========== [16] (1) But before all things, a means must be devised for improving the understanding and purifying it, as far as may be at the outset, so that it may apprehend things without error, and in the best possible way. (2) Thus it is apparent to everyone that I wish to direct all science to one end [e] and aim, so that we may attain to the supreme human perfection which we have named; and, therefore, whatsoever in the sciences does not serve to promote our object will have to be rejected as useless. (3) To sum up the matter in a word, all our actions and thoughts must be directed to this one end. ========== Spinoza is talking about an utterly single-minded determination to attain the highest degree of spiritual excellence that we can.  He feels that even if we bring every asset to bear on our quest for breaking through to the higher dimension of mind by which the intuition that suffices for abstract reasoning, as in mathematics, geometry and logic, can be brought to bear in considering real, individually conceived things, it is still going to be a hard climb to the point at which we may meet with the grace that frees us for the most part from the suffering that we endure as a consequence of mental confusion. Of course, I wish to perfect my own understanding of what Spinoza means throughout this unfinished treatise. But also, I am interested in coming to ideas about why he didn't finish it, or do something with it besides leave it idle in his desk. I have some feelings about this, but I want to see if these can be brought up to the level of reasonable hypothesis.  The notion of "self-evident" truth (at least with respect to the idea of God, goes back at least to Thomas Aquinas' "Summa Theologica," and probably beyond.  Yet, it remains a conundrum as far as I know.  Aren't we still forced to fall back on some mysterious "intuition" when asked how we know, for example, that, given two parallel lines, that a new line parallel to one must likewise be parallel with the other?  It is not easy to divine what Spinoza's "innate true idea" is, even though he claims we all are born with it, unconsciously one must presume. I'm not well versed at all in Prof. Curley's editions (my friends and family know that I'm  a retired contractor with a bad back, not a professional academic), hence this notice cited below  has only recently come to my attention. I don't have time to research who in particular wrote it and what their relationship with Spinoza may have been, but I would like to know, if anyone can offer information about this. ========== [Notice to the Reader.] (This notice to the reader was written by the editors of the Opera Postuma in 1677. Taken from Curley, Note 3, at end) *This Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect etc., which we give you here, kind reader, in its unfinished [that is, defective] state, was written by the author many years ago now. He always intended to finish it. But hindered by other occupations, and finally snatched away by death, he was unable to bring it to the desired conclusion. But since it contains many excellent and useful things, which - we have no doubt - will be of great benefit to anyone sincerely seeking the truth, we did not wish to deprive you of them. And so that you would be aware of, and find less difficult to excuse, the many things that are still obscure, rough, and unpolished, we wished to warn you of them. Farewell.* ========== So, with this in mind, what, if anything, is "rough, obscure, and unpolished," even "defective" in the work? Can we find out? Perhaps some "fine finish work" can be brought to bear on such ideas from expressions found elsewhere in Spinoza's works...