Literature and the encounter with immanence /
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In Literature and the Encounter with Immanence Brynnar Swenson collects nine original essays that approach the relationship between literature and immanence through methodologies grounded in the philosophy of Spinoza. One of Spinoza's most provocative claims is a simple declaration of ignorance: "We do not know what a body can do." A literary theory based on immanence privileges the ontological status of the text and the material act of reading. Rather than ask what a text means, the essays here ask what a text can do. Each essay documents a distinct literary and philosophical encounter with immanence and, as a result, opens up a space to read literature as one would read philosophy and vice versa .
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1 online resource (ix, 192 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004311930 :
0929-8436 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Philosophy, theology, and politics : a reading of Benedict Spinoza's Tractatus theologico-politicus /
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The interpretation of Spinoza's theologico-political teaching remains a matter of controversy. Is Spinoza simply addressing contemporary difficulties in The Netherlands of the late 1660s? Or is he attempting to solve a more basic and enduring human problem? In this book, it is argued that against the background of contemporary concerns, Spinoza treats the more fundamental "natural problem" of reconciling those who live by "the dictates of reason" with those who live by "the urgings of the passions." Based upon his accounts of theology, human nature, and politics, Spinoza fashions a theocratic or "theologico-political solution" to the "natural problem" by holding that the "universal religion" and the democratic liberalism of the treatise share a common purpose. Thus, Spinoza becomes a "new Moses."
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [245]-249) and index. :
9789047432753 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.