Spinoza recommendation: Philosophy Forums

Spinoza recommendation

easyjacksn
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Posted 04/05/08 - 11:46 PM: Subject: Spinoza recommendation	#1
Could someone please recommend a good edition of Ethics?

Postmodern Beatnik
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Posted 04/06/08 - 07:01 AM:	#2
I recommend the Edwin Curley translation. It's in volume one of his Collected Writings of Spinoza, but you can also get it cheaply in a stand-alone Penguin Classics edition.
"It's all very well in theory but it doesn't work in practice." --Sidney Morgenbesser on Pragmatism Am I a man dreaming I'm a butterfly, or a bowling ball dreaming I'm a plate of sashimi?

easyjacksn
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unenlightened
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Posted 04/11/08 - 10:57 AM:	#4
I'm no expert, but as this is free you can afford a looksee, no? http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/s/spinoza/benedict/
The observer is the observed. J Krishnamurti "Philosophy, to the Philistine, is an evolutionary process, watched over by some sort of brisk dynamic Providence, and culminating in the supreme insight of modern thought." John Cowper Powys

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Posted 04/12/08 - 03:00 PM:	#5
The Elwes translation (which is what you link to above) is fine, too. In fact, Elwes and Curley have very similar translations, though obviously there are differences. Both have respectable credentials in Spinoza scholarship, as well. I just don't trust translations made by people who don't know very much about the philosopher they are translating.
"It's all very well in theory but it doesn't work in practice." --Sidney Morgenbesser on Pragmatism Am I a man dreaming I'm a butterfly, or a bowling ball dreaming I'm a plate of sashimi?

Dunamis
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Posted 05/02/08 - 08:39 PM:	#6
Some time has passed, but beside the Curley Collected Works of Spinoza, which is definitely the best, other aids include: This on-line hypertext of the Ethics, in the Elwes translation. (Due to the extensive cross-referencing of Spinoza, hypertext actually suit his works quite well.) And the Latin text of the Ethics [scroll down], if any future readers are interested, including a .pdf copy. (Because Spinoza is so damn precise and careful, and the exact nature of some propositions have reverberating effects across the text, sometimes it is worth while to look at the Latin). Edited by Dunamis on 05/02/08 - 08:52 PM
Tractatus theologico-politicus [is a] work forged in Hell by a renegade Jew and the Devil and issued with the knowledge of Mynheer Jan de Witt. - Church Council of Amsterdam If no man ever thinks alone, then we might say that to know really is to think ever less by oneself - Balibar

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Posted 05/03/08 - 09:57 AM:	#7
Thanks for the links, Dunamis. You're absolutely right about hypertexting Spinoza. In fact, that would be an excellent project to undertake for most of the early modern philosophers, as well as the denser Germans. The Latin is a good find, too. I knew it had to be available online, but I'd never bothered to look for it.
"It's all very well in theory but it doesn't work in practice." --Sidney Morgenbesser on Pragmatism Am I a man dreaming I'm a butterfly, or a bowling ball dreaming I'm a plate of sashimi?

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