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76. - Friendship

from F

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 January 2025

By
Steven Nadler
Edited by
Karolina Hübner  and
Justin Steinberg
Karolina Hübner
Affiliation:
Cornell University, New York
Justin Steinberg
Affiliation:
Cornell University, New York
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Summary

In Part 4 of the Ethics, Spinoza argues that the “free person [homo liber],” who is guided by reason and sees what is truly in his or her own best interest, will strive to bring other people to the same level of rational perfection. “The good which everyone who seeks virtue wants for himself, he also desires for other men” (E4p37).

Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Spinoza Lexicon , pp. 194 - 198
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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References

Recommended Reading

James, S. (2021). Spinoza on Learning to Live Together. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kisner, M. J. (2011). Spinoza on Human Freedom: Reason, Autonomy and the Good Life. Cambridge University Press. Especially Chapter 7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
LeBuffe, M. (2010). From Bondage to Freedom: Spinoza on Human Excellence. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lucash, F. (2012). Spinoza on friendship. Philosophia, 40, 305–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nadler, S. (2014). The lives of others: Spinoza on benevolence as a rational virtue. In Kisner, M. J. and Youpa, A. (eds.), Essays on Spinoza’s Ethical Theory (pp. 41–56). Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nadler, S. (2021). Spinoza on friendship. Historia philosophica, 19, 87–97.Google Scholar
Steinberg, D. (1984). Spinoza’s ethical doctrine and the unity of human nature. Journal of the History of Philosophy, 22, 303–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Youpa, A. (2020). The Ethics of Joy: Spinoza on the Empowered Life. Oxford University Press. Especially Chapter 10.Google Scholar

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