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40. - Consciousness

from C

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 January 2025

By
Michael LeBuffe
Edited by
Karolina Hübner  and
Justin Steinberg
Karolina Hübner
Affiliation:
Cornell University, New York
Justin Steinberg
Affiliation:
Cornell University, New York
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Summary

Spinoza devotes Parts 2–5 of the Ethics to the human mind and features of human mentality – the affects, human bondage to passion, and its mitigation – that hold special interest. While we may today take the characterization of consciousness to be one of the fundamental tasks of the philosophy of mind, consciousness is not a focal point of the Ethics. Critical debate continues over the questions of what Spinoza’s views on consciousness are, whether those views are coherent, and, indeed, whether Spinoza has views about consciousness at all.

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Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Spinoza Lexicon , pp. 99 - 102
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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References

Recommended Reading

Curley, E. (1969). Spinoza’s Metaphysics: An Essay in Interpretation. Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garber, D. (2021). Spinoza’s non-theory of non-consciousness. In Melamed, Y. (ed.), A Companion to Spinoza (pp. 304–27). Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Garrett, D. (2008). Representation and consciousness in Spinoza’s naturalistic theory of the imagination. In Huenemann, C. (ed.), Interpreting Spinoza: Critical Essays (pp. 4–25). Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
LeBuffe, M. (2010). Theories about consciousness in Spinoza’s Ethics. Philosophical Review, 119(4), 531–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, J. (2007). The status of consciousness in Spinoza’s concept of mind. In Heinämaa, L., Lähteenmäki, V., and Remes, P. (eds.), Consciousness: From Perception to Reflection in the History of Philosophy (pp. 203–20). Springer.Google Scholar
Nadler, S. (2008). Spinoza and consciousness. Mind, 117, 575–601.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marrama, O. (2017). Consciousness, ideas of ideas and animation in Spinoza’s Ethics. British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 25(3), 506–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilson, M. D. (1980). Objects, ideas and “minds”: Comments on Spinoza’s theory of mind. In Kennington, R. (ed.), The Philosophy of Baruch Spinoza (pp. 103–20). Catholic University of America Press.Google Scholar

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