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Originality and Artistic Impulse: From a Medieval Scottish Friar to Malevich’s Black Square
Read more: Originality and Artistic Impulse: From a Medieval Scottish Friar to Malevich’s Black SquareIs there any such thing as a new idea? Bryony Coombs discusses similarities in artistic expression, centuries apart.
Alienation Reconsidered: Fischbach on Marx and Spinoza
Event Catch-up: Etienne Balibar in Conversation
We were delighted to host philosopher Etienne Balibar in a fascinating online conversation about his book, Spinoza: The Transindividual. Published in our Incitements series, it is one of the most important books published on Spinoza in the last 30 years.…
Spinoza and democracy in peril
By Dan Taylor In October 2020, in the days leading up to the US Presidential Election, over 130 leading historians of fascism signed an open letter. They warned that democracy today is deeply imperilled. It is either ‘withering or in…
The world of Spinoza’s Theological–Political Treatise
By Dan Taylor Baruch Spinoza’s Theological–Political Treatise, published anonymously in 1670, quickly turned Europe upside-down. Dismissed by one contemporary as a book ‘forged in hell by the Devil himself’, it argued that for societies to endure conflict and flourish, they…
5 Things You Never Knew About Spinoza
Rediscovering the Wonder of Philosophy
Wonder is largely absent as a topic of concern to contemporary philosophers. Yet ancient philosophers saw it as the source of what was distinctive in their way of thinking. Plato and Aristotle thought that it was the stirrings of wonder…
From the Archives – The Creation of the Concept through the Interaction of Philosophy with Science and Art
At the beginning of the book What Is Philosophy? written by Gilles Deleuze in collaboration with Felix Guattari, the authors assert that “the time has come for us to ask what philosophy is”. They explicitly dismiss any hierarchy of the…