Nieuwe MA-thesis Spinoza on Human Nature

Onlangs is deze MA-thesis via internet beschikbaar gesteld, daarop wees vannacht M. A. Istvan Jr in een tweet:

Camille Blanckaert, Spinoza on Human Nature. An inquiry to Spinoza’s conception of the essence of man. Master in the Arts of Philosophy-thesis, Faculty of Arts and Philosophy Ghent University, 2016 [PDF]

Promotor: prof. dr. Eric Schliesser; Co-promotor: dr. Daniel Schneider; Committee-member: dr. Michael Istvan.

Dat die laatste, Michael Istvan, over wiens dissertatie ik onlangs een blog had, flink wat invloed heeft gehad en in ieder geval veel wordt geciteerd, is duidelijk merkbaar.

De uiteindelijke slotconclusie van Camille Blanckaert is een andere dan die van Istvan:

“From all this I conclude that, for Spinoza, there is no such thing as a universal human essence that all human beings share. Every thing there is, possesses its own particular essence that cannot be predicated of multiple individuals. Human nature is a mind-dependent concept we feign to easier retain and explain things. Still, the fact that there is no real metaphysical unity among people doesn't entail that it's impossible for us to connect. Our reason is what connects us, not our essence. And this is where the beauty of Spinoza's ethics lies.”

En passant nog te melden dat in dit geval Lucia Lermond’s The Form of Man: Human Essence in Spinoza’s Ethics (1988) niet aan de orde komt.