Συμπόσιον

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Edwin Curley

This book is the fruit of twenty-five years of study of Spinoza by the editor and translator of a new and widely acclaimed edition of Spinoza's collected works. Based on three lectures delivered at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1984, the work provides a useful focal point for continued discussion of the relationship between Descartes and Spinoza, while also serving as a readable and relatively brief but substantial introduction to the Ethics for students. Behind the Geometrical Method is actually two books in one. The first is Edwin Curley's text, which explains Spinoza's masterwork to readers who have little background in philosophy. This text will prove a boon to those who have tried to read the Ethics, but have been baffled by the geometrical style in which it is written. Here Professor Curley undertakes to show how the central claims of the Ethics arose out of critical reflection on the philosophies of Spinoza's two great predecessors, Descartes and Hobbes. The second book, whose argument is conducted in the notes to the text, attempts to support further the often controversial interpretations offered in the text and to carry on a dialogue with recent commentators on Spinoza. The author aligns himself with those who interpret Spinoza naturalistically and materialistically.

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St. Augustine

This work was written by St. Augustine late in his life with the intention of supplying a well-educated Roman layman with a brief but comprehensive exposition of the essential teachings of Christianity. It contains many of his most profound and mature definitions of his thoughts on sin, grace and predestination, and is regarded as an indispensable guide to Augustinian Christianity.

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herausgegeben und eingeleitet von Gerhard Wehr

Written around 1350 by an anonymous author, this is a simple yet profound book about life in God as it translates into life in the world. This translation is based on Luther's edition of 1518. Bengt Hoffman in his Foreword says, "Luther's kinship with this book and with Johann Tauler, as well as with some other mystics of the late Middle Ages, suggests a union in the Body of Christ, transcending ecclesial boundaries." Luther wrote: "next to the Bible and St. Augustine, no other book has come to my attention from which I have learned-and desired to learn-more concerning God, Christ, man and what all things are."

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Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Rousseau wrote about the difficulty of being a good individual within an inherently corrupting collectivity: society. Emile deals specifically with education, and outlines a system which would allow for human goodness. He uses the fictional story of Emile and his tutor to outline his ideas. The book was banned and publicly burned on its publication, but became a European bestseller and provided a basis for new education systems.