#baruch spinoza ethics

[sictransitgloriamvndi]

“We feel and know that we are eternal.” - Baruch Spinoza

[cinematic-literature]

Poor Things (2023) by Yorgos Lanthimos

Book title: Ethics, Demonstrated in Geometrical Order (Ethica, ordine geometrico demonstrata in Latin; 1677) by Baruch Spinoza

[philosophybits]

Hatred is increased by being reciprocated, and can on the other hand be destroyed by love.

Baruch Spinoza, Ethics

[quotessentially]

From Baruch Spinoza’s Ethics

[malachia-il-bibliotecario]

"please elaborate on the differences that you, the theorist of the concept of God Or Nature, believe exist between the concepts of God and Nature"

[philosophybitmaps]

[clownmoder]

this and a bunt

[tonreihe]

“The temptation which may arise is to take aesthetic things as a model in thinking of moral things.” (Jacques Maritain, An Introduction to the Basic Problems of Moral Philosophy.)

[the-ephemeral-ethereal]

The Inside Out Emotions Defined as The Affects in Ethics by Baruch Spinoza

Joy - "Joy is a man's passage from a lesser to a greater perfection."

2. Sadness - "Sadness is a man's passage from a greater to a lesser perfection."

3. Fear - "Fear is an inconstant sadness, born of the idea of a future or past thing whose outcome we to some extent doubt."

4. Envy - "Envy is hate insofar as it so affects a man that he is saddened by another's happiness and, conversely, glad at his ill fortune. To envy one commonly opposes compassion."

5. Anger - "Anger is a desire by which we are spurred, from hate, to do evil to one we hate."

6. Disgust - Spinoza does not explicitly address disgust, but in his definition of desire, it could be extrapolated that he might've described disgust as a sated appetite.

7. Ennui - Spinoza also does not explicitly address ennui or boredom, but again in his definition of desire, it could be extrapolated that he might've described ennui as the lack of desire.

8. Anxiety - Spinoza also does not explicitly address anxiety, but in his definition of fear, it could be extrapolated that he might've described anxiety as fear of a future without hope.

9. Embarrassment - Spinoza also does not explicitly address embarrassment, but he does define shame, which could be a very comparable emotional affect. He defines shame as follows: "Shame is a sadness, accompanied by the idea of some action [of ours] which we imagine that others blame."

[agora-bishoy]

يظن الناس أنفسهم أحرارًا لأنهم شاعرون بإرادتهم ورغباتهم، ولكنهم يجهلون الأسباب التي أفضت بهم إلى الإرادة والرغبة

باروخ سبينوزا | الأخلاق

[areadersquoteslibrary]

"Whoever loves God must not expect God to love him in return."

Baruch Spinoza

The Ethics

[girl-debord]

"[...] I do not know why matter should be unworthy of the divine nature, since there can be no substance external to God by which it can be acted upon. All things, I repeat, are in God, and all things that come to pass do so only through the laws of God's infinite nature and follow from the necessity of his essence."

- Baruch Spinoza, Ethics

[todaysjewishholiday]

26 Iyyar 5784 (2-3 June 2024)

Once again, we have a yahrzeit of two influential teachers centuries apart who shaped Judaism and demonstrate Jewish diversity and adaptability.

Saadia ben Yosef, Gaon of Sura, was born on the banks of the Nile in 4652, roughly 200 years after the Islamic conquest. Thus, rather than the Greco-Roman and Persian cultures of the Tannaim and Amoraim, he grew up in an Arabic speaking world shaped by a rival Abrahamic tradition. He was the first Jewish scholar to write primarily in Judeo-Arabic, the language later adopted by the Rambam Moshe ben Maimon. At the age of 20, Saadia began compiling a Hebrew dictionary. He soon went to eretz yisroel for further study, and after ten years there moved to Babylonia where he became a member of yeshiva of Sura, which had been in continuous operation from the time of the Amoraim. Within two years the Jewish exilarch appointed Saadia as Gaon of the academy.

From the start, Saadia’s career was shaped by disputation and sharp debate with those whose stances he found theologically or socially objectionable. The tenor of those disputes was shaped not only by Jewish tradition, but by the open conflict between Mutazilite and Mutakallamist scholars of Islam, who in Saadia’s time remained in dispute about whether the Quranuc text was a created object like other creations, or co-eternal with G-d and fundamental to the divine essence. Parallel debates about the Torah have raged in Judaism, but Saadia borrowed the shape of the qadi’s arguments rather than their content, engaging in sharp disputes about the proper way to calculate the Hebrew calendar and striving to defend rabbinic Judaism in fiery exchanges with Karaite scholars who accepted only the written Torah and rejected the oral traditions central to rabbinic practice. Saadia’s fiery temper and forceful personality soon put him at odds with his benefactor the Exilarch, and they spent several years in bitter conflict, each going so far as to issue cherem against the other. Their eventual reconciliation allowed Saadia to return to his position as head of the yeshiva of Sura, a position which carried great weight of authority for Jews throughout the Islamic world.

A prolific scholar, he composed numerous translations, publishing much of the Tanakh in Arabic translation, numerous linguistic texts on the Hebrew language, works of halakha, theology, and Jewish mysticism, and a large number of polemics against his various ideological opponents. He died in Sura in the year 4702 at the age of sixty, reportedly of severe depression from his many conflicts with the exilarch and others.

Moshe Chaim Luzzatto was born just over eight hundred years late than Saadia, in 5467, in the Venetian Ghetto (the first Jewish quarter to be called by that odious name). He received a wide Jewish and secular education, and may have attended the university of Padua. In his teens he began to compose poetry, including his own collection of 150 Hebrew psalms in full biblical style, and study Jewish mysticism. At the age of twenty he claimed he had been visited by a Malakh and began writing down mystical lessons from this heavenly mentor. This claim of divine tutelage shocked and offended the Venetian rabbinical establishment, and he was only saved by cherem by agreeing to cease his writing and teaching of mysticism. He then emigrated to Amsterdam where he continued his mystical explorations while working as a diamond cutter, thus following closely in the footsteps of a controversial Jew from a century before, Baruch Spinoza. Disappointed by the difficulties of life in Amsterdam, he traveled to eretz yisroel with his family three years before his death and established a shul in Acre. He died during a plague outbreak in Acre at the age of 39, leaving behind an immense body of poetry, drama, and theological, ethical, and mystical instruction despite the seizure and destruction of much of his early work by the Venetian Jewish authorities. His works were soon praised by the Vilna Gaon and became central to the Mussar movement, and his Hebrew poetry and blending of secular and Torah learning and literature became a major inspiration to the Haskalah. For his rabbinic teachings he is known by the acronym RaMCHaL, for Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto.

The twenty-sixth of Iyyar is also the sixth night of the sixth week of the Omer count. Yesterday was the fortieth day of the Omer. After tonight’s count, 8 days remain before Shavuot.

[philosophybits]

If anyone conceives that he is loved by another, and believes that he has given no cause for such love, he will love that other in return.

Baruch Spinoza, Ethics

[quotessentially]

From Baruch Spinoza’s Ethics

[camisoledadparis]

THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY

based on: The White Crane Institute's 'Gay Wisdom', Gay Birthdays, Gay For Today, Famous GLBT, glbt-Gay Encylopedia, Today in Gay History, Wikipedia, and more … November 24

1632 – Baruch Spinoza, the Dutch philosopher was born on this date (d. 1677). One of the great rationalists of 17th century philosophy, he laid the groundwork for the 18th century Enlightenment and modern biblical criticism. By virtue of his magnum opus, the posthumous Ethics, Spinoza is also considered one of Western philosophy's definitive ethicists. He was raised and educated in the Orthodox Jewish fashion, also studying Latin and was thoroughly familiar with European humanism.

What exactly is it that caused him to be excommunicated from the synagogue when he was only 24 years old? Many scholars have speculated that the horror Spinoza inspired in the Jewish community may have come not only from his espousal of advanced economic theories, but from his espousal, as well, of Greek love among impressionable students in the liberal circle where he taught. A Dutch physician, J. Roderpoort, wrote at The Hague in 1897: "Spinoza excites the youth to respect women not at all and to give themselves to debauchery." Was Spinoza merely teaching the Greek and Roman classics, with their inevitable passages on pederasty? What were Roderpoort's motives for discrediting the Jewish philosopher? Was Spinoza, in fact a pederast? It's all open to speculation.

1933 – A law was passed in Germany to allow surgical castrations as a crime prevention measure and a therapeutic treatment for homosexuality.

1930 – Albert Wolsky is an American costume designer. He has worked both on stage shows as well as for film, and has received two Academy Awards, for his work on the films All That Jazz and Bugsy.

Wolsky was born in Paris, France, but during World War II, he and the rest of his family fled to the United States to escape the German occupation. After graduating from the City College of New York, he served in the army from 1953–56, spending most of his enlistment in Japan. Once he returned to the United States, he began working in his father's travel agency. However, he decided to change careers and took an assistant's job with notable costume maker Helene Pons.

Wolsky became a well-regarded costume designer, working both on Broadway and in the motion picture industry.

His longtime partner was actor James Mitchell.

1933 – René Enriquez remembered for his role as the perpetually worried Lieutenant Ray Calletano on Hill Street Blues.

Born in San Francisco, California, he attended San Francisco College and San Francisco State University. He served with the U.S.Air Force during the Korean War. He was a member of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York from 1958. He was also the nephew of General Emiliano Chamorro, one-time president of Nicaragua.

As a film actor, René was known for Bananas (1971), Harry and Tonto (1974), Under Fire (1983) and The Evil That Men Do (1988).

He also appeared in episodes of Charlie's Angles, Benson, WKRP in Cincinnati and Quincy.

In biographies and intervies, Enriquez told of a wife who had tragically died. It was a lie. He was a homosexual bachelor who contracted AIDS in 1987. As he became more and more ill, he told his friends and fans he was suffering from cancer. He died in March 1990.

His publicist and long-time friend Henry Bollinger revealed, "René told me he was dying of pancreatic cancer. He never told me anything about a gay lifestyle."

The true cause of his death only became known when his death certificate was published. Cause of death was given as "cytomegalovirus enteritis due to Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS)"

The only people privy to René's terrible secret were his two sisters and his 25-year-old Hispanic lover.

1940 – Arthur Tress, American photographer, born. The uncompromising, poetic imagery of American photographer Arthur Tress is the stuff of dreams, called forth from the artist's reckoning with the world and his place in it.

A New Yorker, he began his photographic career at age twelve, making snapshots of dilapidated mansions and Coney Island decay. An introverted child of divorce, Tress moved between two worlds--his lower-class mother's neighborhoods and his nouveau riche, remarried father's more prosperous one, observing and eventually photographing both milieus.

As he recalls, from a very young age he was already aware that his sexuality was different from most of his classmates and he was drawn to subject matter that was similarly marginalized and different.

During his studies at Bard College, Tress explored painting and filmmaking but was ultimately committed to still photography. Although he worked in a documentary style, from the beginning his imagery was characterized by a surrealist sensibility.

After graduation Tress traveled the world, in part financed by his father and also supporting himself by making ethnographic and documentary images. During his travels he became increasingly influenced by his experience of other cultures, particularly in matters of spirituality and consciousness.

Tress's first book, The Dream Collector (1972), was an attempt to visualize children's dreams, often featuring children whom Tress had interviewed as models. His second book, Shadow: A Novel in Photographs (1975), showed "portraits" of the photographer's shadow and explored the idea that the shadow literally and metaphorically represented one's dark side.

Theater of the Mind (1976), which included an essay by his friend and mentor, gay photographer Duane Michals, explored adult fantasies and marked the introduction in Tress's work of overtly erotic imagery. As Tress explained, he sought to make "photographs [that] attempt to make explicit . . . sexual passions and ironies."

"Superman Fantasy"

Around 1972 Tress consciously began to include what he called "the more intimate spheres of a gay sexuality and homoerotic fantasy life." Facing Up (1977-1980), alternately titled Phallic Phantasy, was Tress's first explicitly conscious exploration of his sexuality in which he exclusively photographed male nudes.

"Groom with White Arabian"

Many of these images were included in Tress's homoerotic homage, Male of the Species: Four Decades of Photography of Arthur Tress (1999), which culls imagery from Tress's forty-year career of exploring the male body and sexuality. The sensual photographs, sequenced in a loose narrative of experience from youth to death, matter-of-factly infuse male sexuality with humor and irony.

In contrast, Tress's obsessive constructions made and photographed for the Hospital series (1984-1987) are a garish, nightmarish reckoning with health-related issues and death in the era of AIDS.

1954 – James Lecesne is an American actor, author, screenwriter, and LGBT rights activist best known for his screenplay of the Academy-award winning short film Trevor. He has written several books including Absolute Brightness and Virgin Territory, and is also active in the entertainment industry as an actor and producer.

Lecesne wrote the 1995 short film Trevor, which won the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film. He based the screenplay for Trevor on a character from his one-man show Word of Mouth. Also in 1995, Word of Mouth won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding One-Person Show. Word of Mouth was directed by Eve Ensler.

In 1998, on the night Ellen DeGeneres hosted the television debut of Trevor on HBO, Lecesne co-founded and launched The Trevor Project as the first nationwide 24-hour crisis intervention lifeline for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning youth, including phone, in-person and online life-affirming resources such as Trevor Lifeline, TrevorChat, TrevorSpace, Ask Trevor and Trevor Education Workshops. The Trevor Project has been supported by a wide variety of celebrities, including Daniel Radcliffe, Neil Patrick Harris, James Marsden, Kim Kardashian, George Takei, and Anderson Cooper.

1984 – Wolf Hudson is a Dominican American film director, street dancer and pornographic actor of heterosexual, homosexual, and bisexual films.

Hudson started his adult film career in 2006 at age 22 in New York when he was cast by Michael Lucas in the Lucas Entertainment project Michael Lucas' Auditions Vol. 22. He moved to San Francisco in early 2007 to focus on his career in the pornographic film industry full-time and to work for gay pornographic film studio Factory Videos.

In August 2008, he co-starred in the GayVN Award-winning bisexual film Shifting Gears , directed by Chi Chi LaRue. The film stirred up controversy when the term "Straight-for-pay" (a play on word for Gay-for-pay) was coined to reference performer Blake Riley's first encounter with a woman (Shy Love) and liking it. Riley received most of the criticism, but so did Hudson and LaRue.

Hudson appeared in the third season of the Canadian TV show Webdreams , which followed Jet Set Men directors Chris Steele and Chad Donovan.

Hudson turned down an offer to appear on a January 22, 2009, episode of The Tyra Banks Show concerning Gay-for-pay performers. He expressed his reservations about appearing because of how the show could twist things around to make the guys look bad.

Hudson identifies himself as heterosexual, even going as far as to call himself a "sexualist" instead of gay-for-pay. He is quoted as saying, "I am not conventional. I am not fully straight because I do gay porn, but I'm not bi because I don't date men in my personal life. I define myself as a 'sexualist'. I think Chi Chi LaRue came up with that term and it works for me."

1991 – Freddie Mercury, lead singer for Queen, died of complications from AIDS. It was only the day before that he acknowledged that he had the disease. He left most of his estate to a former girlfriend, Mary Austen, who cared for him during his final months.

2015 – The Vietnamese National Assembly passes a law that allows those who have undergone sex reassignment surgery to register under their preferred sex. However, sex reassignment surgery is illegal in Vietnam. The law comes into effect in 2017.

On Gay Rights, Vietnam is Now More Progressive Than America