Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect · §§7–10
Episode 3
Love: a source of suffering or a path towards joy? Michah and Clare explore Spinoza’s image of philosophy as a remedy, debate what his account of attachment means for human relationships, and confront the gap between understanding a better life and being able to live it.
Editorial preview These show notes are drafts for review.
§7 · Philosophy as a remedy
Spinoza’s language shifts in this first passage to something more urgent: he compares changing one’s life to seeking treatment for a fatal illness. Michah and Clare discuss persistent meditation as reflection and philosophical practice, and examine different ways of understanding the danger Spinoza is describing here.
§8 · What is at stake?
Spinoza uses examples of destructive pursuits to give the argument a literal dimension. Michah and Clare ask how persuasive those examples are today, alongside the older philosophical image of caring for or healing the mind.
§9 · The things we love
In this passage, Spinoza explains that love of things that can perish connects the pursuit of happiness to sadness, envy, fear, and hatred. Michah and Clare ask how much of the problem lies in the object of desire versus how we cling to it. They explore the difference between competitive acquisition and love that connects us to others.
§9 · Human relationships
Does Spinoza’s criticism of attachment leave room for loving family and friends? The conversation brings out different readings of this passage, including whether the target is possessiveness towards conventional goods, and the question remains open.
§10 · Knowing and doing
Here Spinoza goes on to say that love directed towards what is eternal and infinite offers another possibility. Michah and Clare identify this as pointing ahead to Spinoza’s account of God in the Ethics, which remains to be explored. Yet insight has not changed his desires: the episode closes on another cliffhanger; Spinoza talks of the transition from seeing the good to doing the good. How is he going to make this movement? How do you get from theory to practice?
A few useful terms
Meditation
In this discussion, sustained reflection or contemplation; the hosts also consider its possible character as a philosophical practice.
Attachment
Clinging to something loved and locating one’s happiness in it. How this applies to human relationships is debated in the episode.
Eternal and infinite
Spinoza’s description of what this different kind of love is directed towards. The hosts connect it to God while leaving the fuller account for later reading.
Read alongside us
The edition used in the podcast
A Spinoza Reader
The Ethics and Other Works · Edited and translated by Edwin Curley
The hosts read from this Princeton University Press anthology. It includes the Ethics and selections from Spinoza’s other writings. Follow the paragraph numbers listed with each episode; page numbers vary between editions.
Exclusive podcast offer: buy A Spinoza Reader, edited by Edwin Curley, direct from Princeton University Press and use code SPINOZA (all caps) for 40% off.
