Freedom and bondage in Spinoza's Ethics

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Document
    Item Description
    Linked Agent
    Creator (cre): Pitts, Alexander M.
    Advisor (adv): Frierson, Patrick
    Date
    May 10, 2017
    Graduation Year
    2017
    Abstract

    "Freedom and Bondage in Spinoza’s Ethics" concerns the availability of a 'freedom worth wanting' in Baruch Spinoza’s opus that is unthreatened by his metaphysics of determinism and substance monism. These metaphysical commitments seem to threaten a freedom that allows for phenomenology of choice and ethical responsibility, but, through a rigorous reading of the text, these are of no concern; Spinoza makes available a worthy theory of freedom. However, this reading argues that since freedom necessitates perfect adequate knowledge of the affects, only infinite modes can be free. Contrary to other scholarship on the matter, this reading further argues that humans are totally bound to the affects through their imperfection.

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    Extent
    63 pages
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