18 | Spinoza: Necessity, Ethics, Joy

In this episode we finally get around to talking about Spinoza. It turns out normativity is kind of complicated when you think everything is strictly determined and there’s no such thing as contingency! We discuss the relationship between affect and power, the inherently social nature of knowledge, and why you should want joy for others as much as for yourself. Along the way we also manage to work in a needless and slanderous dig against Heidegger, just for good measure.

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References:

Benedict de Spinoza, Ethics, trans. and ed. Edwin Curley (New York: Penguin, 1996)

Benedict de Spinoza, Political Treatise, trans. Samuel Shirley (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2000)

Music: Vintage Memories by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com