Spinozas Philosophical Psychotherapy :: Philosophy Philosophical Essays

Spinozas Philosophical Psychotherapymissing works citedABSTRACT Spinozas philosophy has a practical(a) aim. The Ethics can be interpreted as a guide to a happy, intellectually flourishing life. Spinoza gives us principles about how to guard against the post of passions which impede the mind from attaining understanding. In what follows, I consider Spinozas techniques for guarding against the passions by turning to Jonathan Bennetts animadversions of Spinozistic psychotherapy. Bennett finds three interchange techniques for freeing oneself from the passions (i) reflecting on determinism (ii) separating and joining and (iii) turning passions into actions. Bennett believes that all of these techniques be in some sense flawed. I contend that Bennett offers good criticism against technique (i), but his criticisms against (ii) and (iii) are unfounded. I. IntroductionSpinozas philosophy had a practical aim. What he wanted to do was to show the way to perfect peace of mind and joy offer ed by the life of reason. The Ethics is written as a scout to a happy, intellectually flourishing life. Basic in Spinozas thought is the simple observation that we all want to live well but do not know the way to a happy life. He wanted to give us the instructions which include principles about how to guard us from the power of passions which prevent the mind from understanding. In this paper my aim is to consider how well founded Spinozas techniques against the passions are. I will do this by concentrating on Jonathan Bennetts criticism of Spinozistic psychotherapy. Bennett finds from the Ethics three central techniques of freeing oneself from passions (i) reflecting on determinism (ii) separating and joining and (iii) turning passions into actions. Bennett believes that all these techniques are in some sense flawed. My contention is that Bennett offers good criticism against reflecting on determinism-technique but that his criticism against separating and joining-technique as wel l as against turning passions into actions-technique is not well-founded. The paper devotes most space to the turning passions into actions-technique. However, before considering Bennetts view of Spinozas psychotherapy, I will give an overview of Spinozas theory of activity and passivity. II. passivity and ActivityAccording to Spinoza we act, when something happens, in us or outside us, of which we are the adequate cause. . . . we are acted on when something happens in us, or something follows from our nature, of which we are single a partial cause. (IIID2). The notion of adequate cause that occurs in the definition above is defined as follows