Monday, November 11, 2013

entertainment



He seems to have had a friendly, even intimate relationship with his landlord’s family... Spinoza apparently spent a good deal of time in his room, working on either his lenses or his writing, or perhaps just reading. “When he was at home, he was troublesome to no one . . . When he tired of his investigations, he came down and spoke with his house companions on whatever was going on, even about trivial matters.” For diversion, he liked to collect spiders and have them fight each other, or throw flies into their webs, creating battles, which so entertained him “that he would break out laughing.” 

Steven Nadler, Spinoza's Ethics, An Introduction, 22


Monday, September 16, 2013

space & time


space and time are neither subsistent beings nor inherent in things as they are in themselves, but are rather only forms of our sensibility, hence conditions under which objects of experience can be given at all and the fundamental principle of their representation and individuation.

intro to Kant's First Critique (Guyer & Wood)