I—Creating Rational Understanding: Spinoza as a Social Epistemologist.

Citation

James, Susan. 2011. "I—Creating rational understanding: Spinoza as a social epistemologist." Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 85, (1): 181-199.

Abstract

Does Spinoza present philosophy as the preserve of an elite, while condemning the uneducated to a false though palliative form of ‘true religion’? Some commentators have thought so, but this contribution aims to show that they are mistaken. The form of religious life that Spinoza recommends creates the political and epistemological conditions for a gradual transition to philosophical understanding, so that true religion and philosophy are in practice inseparable.