Conference: "What does Spinoza tell us in Ethics?"

February 19, 2020, 6:00 p.m. - February 19, 2020, 8:00 p.m.

As part of the series of philosophical lectures on ethical issues, the Languages, Literature, Societies, Cross-Border and International Studies (LLSETI) at the University of Savoie Mont Blanc (USMB) and the Association of Philosophy Teachers in Public Education are organizing a conference on the theme "What does Spinoza tell us in Ethics?" led by Martine Verlhac, honorary professor of philosophy.

This conference will take place on Wednesday, February 19, 2019, from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. in Room 3 of the USMB Presidency, in Chambéry.

About the conference

Spinoza's Ethics proposes, in the words of Maxime Rovere, "methods for existing." However, these methods are based on a construction of reality in which necessity is the foundation of all possibilities. Spinoza, contrary to all norms, does not propose ways of life dictated by transcendent imperatives. Against religious influence, he derived the practice of knowledge from the world of which we are a part, subject to laws, as is the world. If his Ethics may seem difficult under the pretext that it is constructed according to a "geometric" architecture, it is because it rigorously inscribes the human and its "oecumene" from an overall perspective, the knowledge of which will determine actions and laws.

While referring to this architecture, we will modestly begin with a few questions that Spinoza's readers had addressed to him. They concern freedom, since necessity exists, our power, evil, and our union with the world. They therefore concern what affects us, opposes us, or unites us. If it is true that there is nothing more useful to man than men guided by reason, what can be done if reason does not reign spontaneously or unchallenged?

We will try to verify whether the methods proposed by Spinoza can guide our lives, reform our imaginations, and allow us to deploy our strengths in composition beyond the conflicts that inevitably pit people against each other but can also lead to their destruction. Can Spinoza's Ethics help us live freely by renouncing the illusory promises to which morality has accustomed us?

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