A Critical Assesment of Spinoza’s Theory of Affect: Affects, Beliefs, and Human Freedom

Year 2018, Volume: 8 Issue: 1, 251 - 272, 21.07.2018

Ahmet Aktaş

https://doi.org/10.18491/beytulhikme.446507

Abstract

Affects are intentional
structures of beliefs and desires. Many philosophers have plausibly
argued that Spinoza’s theory of ideas is a kind of theory of belief by
this time yet this claim has rarely been taken into account when it
comes to Spinoza’s theory of affects, which is a part of his theory of
ideas. This paper shows that if this point is taken seriously when
regarding Spinoza’s theory of affects we reach significant results about
the fifth part of Ethics. To confirm this, I shall strive to show that
all affects depend on some beliefs by analyzing Spinoza’s theory of
affects regarding his theory of ideas, and in particular an affirmation
which an idea naturally involves. From this revelation, we will be able
to see that Spinoza’s theory of affects appeared in third and fourth
part of Ethics is inconsistent with the fifth part of Ethics in so far
as three therapy methods given at the beginning of the fifth part of
Ethics are considered. Additionally, and suitably to this assertion, I
will also show that arguments by which soundness of these therapy
methods are guaranteed seem logically invalid. Finally, I will try to
revise Spinoza’s therapy methods by taking all errors and core ideas in
Spinoza’s theory of affects into consideration.

Keywords

Spinoza, affect, idea, affirmation, desire, belief, affection, freedom

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