According
to Descartes' famous dualist theory, human beings were composed of
physical bodies and immaterial minds. Spinoza disagreed. In ''The
Ethics,'' his masterwork, published after his death in 1677, he argued
that body and mind are not two separate entities but one continuous
substance.
As for Descartes' view of the mind as a reasoning
machine, Spinoza thought that was dead wrong. Reason, he insisted, is
shot through with emotion. More radical still, he claimed that thoughts
and feelings are not primarily reactions to external events but first
and foremost about the body. In fact, he suggested, the mind exists
purely for the body's sake, to ensure its survival.
For his
beliefs, Spinoza was vilified and -- for extended periods -- ignored.
Descartes, on the other hand, was immortalized as a visionary. His
rationalist doctrine shaped the course of modern philosophy and became
part of the cultural bedrock....
Read the full article by Emily Eakin in The New York Times.
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