Oscillating Affects: Spinoza’s Models for the Confrontation and Adaptation of Opposite Things

Oscillating Affects: Spinoza’s Models for the Confrontation and Adaptation of Opposite Things

Maxime Rovere

 

Abstract. Spinoza’s conception of “negativity: is generally approached under the angle of his metaphysics. Relying instead on ethical considerations throughout his work, this article proposes to identify a slight evolution in the philosopher’s thought, especially between the Tractatus de Intellectus Emendatione and the Ethica. By showing that the first treatises are marked by a logician approach, and that the last texts clearly rely on a physical and mechanical model, it states that Spinoza, during the 1660s, might have undergone a change in his preferences as to which science (logic or physics) he would rather rely on. In particular, it suggests that the cinematic model, in the Ethics, is a pattern that helps conceiving of the relation beween passions (especially when they are contrary to the obtention of the real good) and the intellectual love of God.

Keywords: Negative Affects, Physics and Ethics, Intellectual Love of God

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