That humans presume themselves to have free will, he argues, is a result of their awareness of appetites while being unable to understand the reasons why they want and act as they do.
For him, even human behaviour is fully determined, with freedom being our capacity to know we are determined and to understand why we act as we do. So freedom is not the possibility to say "no" to what happens to us but the possibility to say "yes" and fully understand why things should necessarily happen that way.
On the contrary, he contended, an emotion can only be displaced or overcome by a stronger emotion.
reality is perfection. If circumstances are seen as unfortunate it is only because of our inadequate conception of reality.
emotion is formed from inadequate understanding. His concept of "conatus" states that human beings' natural inclination is to strive toward preserving an essential being and an assertion that virtue/human power is defined by success in this preservation of being by the guidance of reason as one's central ethical doctrine.
opinion, reason, intuition
intuitive knowledge provides the greatest satisfaction of mind
Martial Guéroult suggested the term "Panentheism", rather than "Pantheism" to describe Spinoza’s view of the relation between God and the world. The world is not God, but it is, in a strong sense, "in" God. Not only do finite things have God as their cause; they cannot be conceived without God.[29] In other words, the world is a subset of God.
"Spinoza expressly denies personality and consciousness to God; he has neither intelligence, feeling, nor will; he does not act according to purpose, but everything follows necessarily from his nature, according to law...."[31] Thus, Spinoza's cool, indifferent God [32] is the antithesis to the concept of an anthropomorphic, fatherly God who cares about humanity.
"If by eternity is understood not eternal temporal duration, but timelessness, then he lives eternally who lives in the present."
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