Reading Spinoza in the Anthropocene

Download or read book Reading Spinoza in the Anthropocene written by Genevieve Lloyd and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2024-05-31 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Central to Genevieve Lloyd's approach is a fresh look at Spinoza's critique of what he regards as Descartes' flawed way of imagining the nature and status of human thought in relation to the rest of Nature. Lloyd argues that the influence of the Cartesian model lingers in the contemporary collective imagination. She challenges a common way of reading the Ethics, which reflects and reinforces the figure of Spinoza as a 'rationalist' - committed to the superiority and dominance of Reason within human minds. By offering a more nuanced account of Spinoza's version of Reason, Lloyd brings his philosophy to bear on a range of familiar, but largely unexamined attitudes, which connect the supposed supremacy of Reason within the human mind to humanity's supposed supremacy within Nature.