Sean Winkler - een signalement over zijn #Spinoza-studies

In diverse vroegere blogs wees ik op interessante reviews die Sean Winkler publiceerde op Bibliographia,  zoals van Philip Goff (Ed.), Spinoza on Monism; en van Dimitris Vardoulakis (Ed.), Spinoza Now (2011) [cf. blog van 14-12-2014 Review "Spinoza on Monism"] – en van Joshua Parens, Maimonides and Spinoza: Their Conflicting Views of Human Nature (2012) [cf. blog van 25-02-2015 “Intermezzo: weer interessante recensie van Sean Winkler”].

De genoemde Bibliographia-site en ook de elders geplaatste PDF's zijn allemaal verdwenen. Jammer, maar zo gaat het met internet. Maar zie onder... *)

In dat laatste blog meldde ik dat Sean Winkler in Leuven bezig was met een dissertatie onder de titel The Power of the Intellect in the Philosophy of Baruch Spinoza. Welnu, hij behaalde in december 2016 in Leuven zijn Ph.D. op de dissertatie van inmiddels een andere titel:

A Study of Individuality and Change in Spinoza’s Philosophy. [Cf. en Cf.] Aldaar alleen door medewerkers van de Univ. Van Leuven te downloaden; ik haal de beschrijving hier binnen:

In my doctoral thesis, I attempt to provide a groundwork account of Spinoza’s concept of the ‘individual’. I begin by showing that Spinoza only provides a definition of individuals in the Ethics and that he most likely wrote this definition in the latter phase of his composition of the work. But because he uses the term in a variety of different contexts---some of which were written during earlier periods of his philosophical development---, it is unclear how the different formulations of this notion all fit together. I contend that Spinoza’s account is consistent if one understands that an individual, whether infinite or finite, cannot be understood independently of the relations that it forms with other individuals and that an individual remains self-identical by perpetually adapting or changing. Thus, I maintain that, for Spinoza, individuals are both relations and processes. I conclude by arguing that one can only have a true and adequate idea of the essence of an individual by transcending one’s own individuality. I present my interpretation over the course of four chapters: 1) a study of the relation between formal essences and individuals, 2) a study of the relation between the ratio of motion and rest and conatus of the body, 3) a study of the self-identity of finite individuals and 4) a study of the possibility of having true and adequate ideas of individuals.

Vanaf 2017 zit hij tot 2019 in een Postdoctoral Fellowship aan de National Research University – Higher School of Economics in Moskou. Op zijn pagina bij academia.edu heeft hij de cover en inhoudsopgave van zijn dissertatie geplaatst – niet de Inleiding. Ik haal beide naar binnen.  

 

 

En dan blijkt dat hij successievelijk de hoofdstukken als artikel bracht en brengt:

 

• "The Problem of Generation and Destruction in Spinoza's System" in: Journal of Early Modern Studies, 2016, 1: 89–113 [cf. academia.edu]
[Met het oog op eerdere discussie op dit blog geef ik hier het abstract – ter extra attentie voor sommigen…]

Abstract: In this paper, I address the problem of generation and destruction in Spinoza’s philosophical system. I approach this problem by providing an account of how Spinoza can maintain that contrary finite modes cannot inhere in the same substance, while substance itself does not change. One must distinguish between the formal essence of a mode and the existence of a mode and how these two entities are “in” substance. Formal essences are eternal and are in substance in a Platonic sense, while existent modes are temporal and are in substance insofar as they are parts of the whole of nature, or facies totius universi (face of the universe). Furthermore, the former are modes understood as pure relations, while the latter are modes understood as finite individuals. Formal essences are relations that specify how finite individuals will behave once they come into existence, while existent modes are individuals that express the relations defined by formal essences, as forces that possess a capacity to act and to be acted upon. According to these distinctions, I maintain that it is possible to develop a coherent account of contrariety and, consequently, of generation and destruction in Spinoza’s system.

• "The Conatus of the Body in Spinoza’s Physics" in: Society and Politics, Vol. 10, No. 2(20)/November 2016 [Thema: Identity, Reason, and Passions in Early Modern Thought], p. 95 – 113 [cf. academia.edu - PDF ook hier]

 

•  “Self-Identity in Spinoza’s Account of Finite Individuals,” Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal 39:1 (2018), pp. 169-95. Ook dit artikel bracht hij op academia.edu - als ‘plaatjes’ dus is het nogal omvangrijk. Ik breng niet z’n abstract maar z’n

7. Conclusion
In this essay, I introduced the problem of the perpetual flux of identity in Spinoza's 'letters on Evil." I then showed that Spinoza adopts a formal causal schema in the Ethics, which can serve as a potential solution to this problem. Nevertheless, we saw that this formal causal schema can be interpreted in a number of different ways. I argued that one may interpret this form as a mathematical ratio, specifically, as a Euclidean anthyphairetic ratio, drawing on Matheron's reading of Spinoza's three kinds of knowledge. This account appears to overcome the challenge of finding a conception of change that goes beyond privation, while also leading to a rather idiosyncratic view on self-identity. While this reading introduces certain advantages, it does not do so without introducing some new restrictions of its own. If, however, finite individuals are always acting upon or being acted upon by other finite individuals, it is unclear how any one finite individual can ever develop a true idea of God, which is the very foundation of Spinoza's system. In other words, Spinoza seems to provide an account of finite individuals that no real finite individual could ever possibly have.

Ik ben benieuwd of hij zijn laatste hoofdstuk ook nog ergens gaat onderbrengen en geplaatst krijgt. Ik hoop het: over de Idea Dei is immers niet zoveel geschreven.

*) En dan zie ik dat de door mij zo geprezen reviews, waarvan de eerder geplaatste teksten – zoals ik boven constateerde - van internet verdwenen waren, alle door hem op zijn academia.edu zijn geplaatst. Well done!

Verder is nog te vermelden

•  Sean Winkler, “The Novel of Spinozism: An Introduction.” In: ACTA UNIVERSITATIS CAROLINAE, Interpretationes, Studia Philosophica Europeanea, pp. 129–142 [cf. academia.edu – cf. ook hier]

The aim of this paper is to familiarize the reader with Spinozist literature as introduced in the writings of Gilles Deleuze. I contend that the reception of Spinoza ’ s philosophy among literary writers exhibits more than just an interest in his work but something of value to understanding his philosophy. In fact, Spinozist literature may offer a way of broadening our understanding of Spinoza ’ s concept of common notions, a crucial element of his thought that saw little explication in his own writings. The purpose of this essay, then, is four-fold: 1) historical – to situate Deleuze ’ s reading of Spinoza in a historical context, 2) archaeological – to speculate on factors motivating Deleuze ’ s reading of Spinoza, 3) conceptual – to determine how common notions figure into Deleuze ’ s reading, and 4) evaluative – to characterize Spinozist literature as a way of experimenting with common notions and comment on the potential significance of such a literary genre.

Opvallend intussen dat de Duitse Spinoza Bibliografie niets van hem vermeldt.