Spinoza's Account of Blessedness Explored through an Aristotelian Lens

Abstract

In this article, I examine whether Spinoza's account of blessedness can be identified with a contemplative ideal in the Aristotelian tradition. I first introduce the main features of the Aristotelian life of contemplation and its difference from the life of practically oriented virtues — a difference that is grounded in Aristotle's distinction between praxis and theoria. In highlighting the commonalities between Spinoza's two kinds of adequate cognition — that is, intuitive knowledge and reason — I show that there is no room for a similar distinction in Spinoza, which will enable us to identify intuitive knowledge and its attendant blessedness exclusively with the theoretical activity.

Worlding with the Creal: Autonomous Intelligence and Philosophical Practice

“…(X.7, 1177b26-34). Later, philosophers like Spinoza and Hegel also believed in philosophical practice as a way of becoming spiritually universal and divine-like (Soyarslan 2021). Philosophy, more often than not if we consider its global history, is in fact a form of philotheosis, the love of becoming divine, even if a pinch of self-critical salt is often added to temper the ambition with some wisdom and humility.…”

“…The first Spinozian mode of cognition, rooted in opinion or imagination, emerges from a fragmented and murky apprehension of individual entities conveyed by the physical senses-a process that Spinoza identifies with knowledge from random experience or cognition from signs, such as the recollection of memories or the conjurations of our peculiar imagination (Soyarslan 2021). The second mode, reason, is the product of shared concepts and precise notions of the inherent traits of things.…”