Spinoza's Intellectual Love of God: Interpretations of Ethics Part V

This international workshop at the University of Aberdeen will bring together scholars working in Early Modern Philosophy and Philosophy of Religion to explore the notion of the intellectual love of God as it appears in Part V of Spinoza’s Ethics. 

The aim of the workshop is to examine the nature, scope, and significance of the intellectual love of God, and to consider how it is shaped by central themes in Spinoza’s metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and theology. Topics of discussion will include the role of the third kind of knowledge in grounding this love, the relationship between the mind’s eternity and the body’s duration, and the reception of Spinoza’s account by his contemporaries. Additional themes include the role of science and understanding in attaining this love, and the extent to which the intellectual love of God completes a eudaimonistic vision of human flourishing.

Through these discussions, the workshop aims to reassess the role of the intellectual love of God in Spinoza’s system and to explore its wider relevance for Early Modern thought and contemporary debates in the philosophy of religion.

The event will feature talks from the following speakers:

        24 June

• Kristin Primus (University of California, Berkeley): "The Intellectual and Other Loves of God"
•  Chantal Jaquet (University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne): "Amor Erga Deum and Amor Intellectualis Dei: the Gap Between Body's Duration and Mind's Eternity"
• Dario Zoppetti (University of Aberdeen): "Spinoza and Priest Meet: The Paradox of the Intellectual Love of God"
• David Harmon (University of StAndrews): "You Only Love the Idea of Me: From Intellectual Love to a Pythagorean Spinozism"

           25 June

• Mogens Laerke (CNRS - Maison d'Oxford): Pure Pleasure, Intellectual Autonomy, and Tranquillity of Mind. Tschirnhaus on the Practice of Logic"
• Alexander Douglas (University of StAndrews): "Glory, Love, and the Collapse of Distinctions in Ethics Part Five"
• Daniel Pedersen (University of Aberdeen): "Spinoza's Account of Divine Ends and Divine Self-Love in Christian Theological Context"
• Meg Gottschall (University of StAndrews): "Endowed with Perfection"
• Noa Lahav Ayalon (Harvard University): "Two Loves of God in the Ethics"
• Johanna Alt (University of Aberdeen): "Spinoza and Weil: Science as a Path to the Love of God"
• Brandon Smith (University of Wisconsin, Madison): "The Search for Mind-Body Flourishing in Spinoza's Eudaimonism"