Quotation
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“The human mind cannot be absolutely destroyed with the body, but something of it remains which is eternal.”
Baruch Spinoza · Rationalism · Early modern · 1677
What does it mean?
The usual reading takes the proposition as a denial of ordinary personal survival and a claim of something else: so far as the mind understands under a form of eternity, it expresses an essence not cancelled when the body ends. It is not a reunion or a memory of one's jokes. A rival reading hears folk immortality, the person continuing with their biography, which the surrounding propositions do not support. Proposition 23 is in part five, and it is among the most disputed sentences he wrote.
Did Baruch Spinoza really say this?
The library’s label is Paraphrase or translation. Edwin Curley's translation of Ethics, part five, proposition 23. The eternal remainder is not a personal afterlife that remembers the body's story. This wording is a translation.
Where it comes from
Ethics V, proposition 23
Approximate date: 1677.
How to use it
A funeral in a crematorium in Cardiff often wants a sentence that says the person goes on, grudges and catchphrases included. This proposition will not honestly do that job. Something of the mind is said to be eternal as an essence conceived through necessity, not as a continued conversation; Using it as ordinary comfort changes the claim into a different doctrine from the one in part five.
A mindset reading
The sentence tempts readers who want his reputation softened. The softness is real and it is not the softness usually wanted. He is not offering a future in which interrupted projects are resumed; He is offering a way of conceiving adequate ideas as not measured by the body's duration; Whether that consoles is a further question; He thinks the love of God that belongs with it is rare.
Understand the philosophy
The key term is eternity, existence conceived as following from God's nature, not as a very long time. Proposition 23 says the mind cannot be utterly destroyed with the body because there is an eternal idea of the body's essence. Curley's translation, with the scholium, blocks the slide into a familiar afterlife. Part five's freedom is understanding; It is not escape into another biography.
- death
- mind
- meaning
FAQ
What does it mean?
The usual reading takes the proposition as a denial of ordinary personal survival and a claim of something else: so far as the mind understands under a form of eternity, it expresses an essence not cancelled when the body ends. It is not a reunion or a memory of one's jokes. A rival reading hears folk immortality, the person continuing with their biography, which the surrounding propositions do not support. Proposition 23 is in part five, and it is among the most disputed sentences he wrote.
Did Baruch Spinoza really say this?
Paraphrase or translation. Edwin Curley's translation of Ethics, part five, proposition 23. The eternal remainder is not a personal afterlife that remembers the body's story. This wording is a translation.
Which work is it in?
Ethics V, proposition 23 Approximate date: 1677.