Benedict de Spinoza · Philosophy

Human Bondage and the Free Person

Spinoza calls our enslavement to the passions ‘human bondage’: when we are driven by emotions we do not understand, we are passive, tossed about by fortune. Freedom is not free will but understanding - replacing confused ideas with adequate ones, and so acting from our own nature.

What you'll be able to recall

You learned that Spinoza calls our subjection to the passions ‘human bondage’, and that for him freedom is not free will (which he denies) but the active power that comes from understanding - turning passions into actions by replacing inadequate ideas with adequate ones. Explain this redefinition of freedo…

Leads to Epictetus.

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