Spinoza's joy Part 2

The point is that while we are trained to think of values as something EMOTIONAL (I love this or that, I like this or that, I hate this or that, I dislike this or that) from Christianity: Repenting your sins mean nothing unless you FEEL the need to do so, you feel remorse etc, as soon as we leave the world of morality and enter ethics (as we do with Zarathushtra and Spinoza) we remove emotions from valuation and instead value with our MINDS. This is a rational and cold calculation circultaing around our IDENTITY: No matter how I feel, I do what I do because I am what I do and I KNOW what I am. This is how we both know what is right and we know who we are and get a strong and stable sense of SELF. So when Spinoza speaks of "joy" he does not speak of an emotion we should wait for (we have no control over our emotions, they are just chemical coincidences anyway) but rather of a JOY as in an INTENSE SENSE of EXISTENCE: Me, my thoughts, my words, my actions, ENJOY being one and the same unity. This is a passive sense of joy, a sense of joy of existence, and not a banal and temporary pleasure as in moralism.

Ushta
Alexander

2009/9/15 Special Kain



Either of us should be concerned with analytic philosophy. It's nice to have one's brain fucked, but if fucked, then please properly. ;-)
So the COLDNESS and ANTIGONE story you're referring to, that's really fascinating. It would be great to have you elaborating on this issue!

--- Alexander Bard schrieb am Di, 15.9.2009:


Von: Alexander Bard
Betreff: [Ushta] Contingency and Spinozism
An: Ushta@yahoogroups.com
Datum: Dienstag, 15. September 2009, 12:55



Dear Dino

Philosophy does not consist of statements. Statements are vocabulary only, pure and simple. Philosophy is the THOUGHT that goes between the lines, it is the intuition that we trace between statements. Which is precisely why analytic philosophy failed in its ambition to "nail language" (as the older Wittgenstein writes about the younger Wittgenstein) . So you can quote Kant for all you like, you may still not grasp what he was THINKING which is what philosophy is all about (just like Art transcends a work of art, if not, then it is not a work of art but just a piece of craft etc).

So what is Spinoza aiming for? He is aiming for a STRONG ETHICS (the title of his most important work) and this ethics is an ethics that disregards the whole issue of determinism and/or contingency, and just demands a full identification with the things our bodies go through. The best example of Spinozist ethics is Zizek's study of Antigone in the spirit of Jacques Lacan. The fascination of the Greeks with Antigone was with the ice cold determined mindset that Antigone showed when acting upon her brother's unjust death. So there is a certain and efinite COLDNESS involved in pure ethics, in the ethical act as such. It is not an emotion we wait for, it is an ACT that is possibly (and possibly not) followed with the emotion we normally associate with "joy".

Ushta
Alexander