Beth Lord
Biographic Data
| ID | 461609 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Beth Lord |
| GIVEN NAMES | Beth |
| FAMILY NAME | Lord |
| SIGNATURE | LORD B |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Dundee |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-9068-0887 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 22 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 4 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 21 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2006 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Spinoza's image of thought: Ratio and the example of the fourth proportional
What constitutes the image of thought for Spinoza? The “image of thought” is a term Gilles Deleuze uses to describe how a philosopher represents thinking, implicitly and pretheoretically. It refers to what a philosopher presupposes about thinking. Spinoza presupposes that human beings think and that thinking comes in three kinds: imagination, reasoning, and intuition. This suggests that thinking may be represented as a ladder ascending from senso…
Spinoza and architectural thinking
Although Spinoza makes few remarks about architecture, his use of architectural examples, understood in the context of his metaphysics and theory of knowledge, reveal the architect to be a distinctive kind of human thinker. In this paper I explore the kind of thinking the architect does, first by demonstrating that Spinoza distinguishes the architect's adequate way of conceiving a building from inadequate ways of imagining one, and second by cons…
Spinoza's Political Psychology: The Taming of Fortune and Fear
For Aristotle, the purpose of the state is the flourishing of human individuals. For early modern political philosophers, the purpose of the state is the flourishing of the whole. The civil state fosters attitudes and activities through which human beings can achieve social cohesion and national prosperity. Spinoza understands these goals to be intertwined: A flourishing society is made up of flourishing individuals. But to develop the reasoning,…
Spinoza's Philosophy of Ratio
Discover Spinoza's philosophy of ratio, from geometry and reason to bodies, affects and architectureFrom his geometrical method to his theory of mind and body and from his account of the emotions to his doctrine of how to live well, ratio is of prime importance in Spinoza's philosophy. These essays explore the surprisingly varied dimensions of this unacknowledged keystone of Spinoza's thought. They take you from Spinoza's geometrical diagrams to …
Spinoza on Philosophy, Religion, and Politics
Susan James is one of the most important scholars working on Spinoza's political philosophy today, and she has now written a much-needed book on Spinoza's major work on politics and religion, the Theologico-Political Treatise of 1670. James takes us through the text topic by topic, and almost page by page, to explain what Spinoza says and to argue for what he means in the context of the religious quarrels and political upheavals of the Dutch Repu…
What can we do with Spinoza
Peer reviewed
Jacobi’s Provocative Suggestion
The possibility that Kantian philosophy could be fused with Spinozism was first raised by Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi in his 1785 book Über die Lehre des Spinoza in Briefen an den Herrn Moses Mendelssohn ( Concerning the Doctrine of Spinoza in Letters to Herr Moses Mendelssohn ). The lasting influence of Jacobi’s text, from his interpretation of Spinoza to his rejection of reason, connects Naturphilosophie to Nietzsche, to twentieth-century French …
Herder and Spinozistic Naturalism
Jacobi’s interpretation of Spinoza extended the standard view that Spinozism was dogmatic and atheistic. J. G. Herder’s God: Some Conversations presented an alternative view: Spinozism should be understood as a vitalist naturalism consistent with Christian faith. The immanent relation between Spinoza’s substance and finite modes becomes organic and dynamic for Herder, and Spinoza’s God is now cast as intelligent, wise, and providential. Kant, see…
Critiques of Teleological Judgement
The question of judging organized beings is central to the second half of the Critique of Judgment . In his essay on teleological principles, Kant had argued that organized nature requires us to think an intelligent supersensible cause if we are to avoid appeals to blind purposiveness or intelligent nature. The Critique of Teleological Judgment expands on this argument by establishing the necessity that we judge organized beings teleologically, a…
Deleuze and Spinozistic Difference
As explained in the introduction, twentieth-century French philosopher Gilles Deleuze is included in this book due to his continuity, as a critic and interpreter of Kant, with Jacobi, Herder, and Maimon. Vincent Descombes has remarked that ‘Deleuze is above all a post-Kantian’, and without wishing to reduce Deleuze to rationalism, naturalism, or idealism, I think his response to Kant can and should be read in terms of post-Kantian Spinozism. 1 Mo…
Conclusion: Kant on Spinoza: The Last Words
The final sections of Kant’s Opus Postumum , written near the end of his life, include multiple references to Spinoza. Indeed, with the exception of Newton, Spinoza is the most frequently named figure in the text. 1 These comments are most often found amidst Kant’s reflections on man’s relation to God and the world, as both a ‘moral–practical’ subject following the categorical imperative, and a ‘technical–practical’ subject acting in nature. The …
Against Spinozistic Dogmatism
Jacobi's Concerning the Doctrine of Spinoza reaffirmed that Spinozism was dogmatic rationalism inextricably tied to atheism and fatalism. This enabled Jacobi — however inappropriately — to equate Spinoza's position with Leibniz's on the one hand, and with those of contemporary rationalists like Mendelssohn on the other. Kant already understood 'Spinozism' to name a dogmatic system that asserted the meta physical reality of a substance without int…
Spinozism in the Ether: Kant’s Opus Postumum
In this chapter I turn to Kant’s Opus Postumum , the text in which his relation to Spinozism is at its most puzzling and intriguing. In this final text, Kant appears to affirm a single material substance produced by the subject’s self-positing. This substance, the ether, is at once a material and transcendental condition of possible experience, and goes some way towards satisfying Maimon’s and Deleuze’s demand for a genetic condition of real expe…
Maimon and Spinozistic Idealism
The first four chapters of this book have looked at Jacobi’s and Herder’s different attempts to fuse Kantianism with Spinozism. Both these thinkers argue that the resources of Spinozism should be used to resolve problems in transcendental idealism: the problem of accounting for the being of reality (Jacobi), and the problem of explaining the diversity of nature (Herder). We have seen that both try to find a point of convergence between Kant and S…
Kant and Spinozism: Transcendental Idealism and Immanence from Jacobi to Deleuze
Spinoza's Ethics: An Edinburgh Philosophical Guide
Museum origins: Readings in Early Museum History and Philosophy
Peer reviewed
The Continuum companion to continental philosophy
Against the fanaticism of forces: Kant's critique of Herder's Spinozism
Peer reviewed
The Virtual and the Ether: Transcendental Empiricism in Kant's Opus Postumum
Foucault’s museum: Difference, representation, and genealogy
Foucault’s work has been used to promote a negative view of the museum as an Enlightenment institution that embodies state power and strives to order the world according to universal rules and the concept of a total history. This article argues that an analysis of Foucault’s work actually leads to a view of the museum that is positive and progressive for dismantling the very notions of historical continuity and coherence that Foucault rejects. Th…
Philosophy and the museum: An introduction to the special issue
This paper introduces the special issue by explaining the context of the conference at which the papers were originally presented, suggesting some ways of thinking about the intersection of philosophy and museums, and briefly introducing each paper in the collection. In the main body of the paper I look at a recent trend in museum interpretation and argue that it can be understood in terms of a definition of the museum as a space of representatio…
Philosophy and the museum: An introduction to the special issue
This paper introduces the special issue by explaining the context of the conference at which the papers were originally presented, suggesting some ways of thinking about the intersection of philosophy and museums, and briefly introducing each paper in the collection. In the main body of the paper I look at a recent trend in museum interpretation and argue that it can be understood in terms of a definition of the museum as a space of representatio…
Spinoza's Philosophy of Ratio
Discover Spinoza's philosophy of ratio, from geometry and reason to bodies, affects and architectureFrom his geometrical method to his theory of mind and body and from his account of the emotions to his doctrine of how to live well, ratio is of prime importance in Spinoza's philosophy. These essays explore the surprisingly varied dimensions of this unacknowledged keystone of Spinoza's thought. They take you from Spinoza's geometrical diagrams to …
Against the fanaticism of forces: Kant's critique of Herder's Spinozism
Peer reviewed
Foucault’s museum: Difference, representation, and genealogy
Foucault’s work has been used to promote a negative view of the museum as an Enlightenment institution that embodies state power and strives to order the world according to universal rules and the concept of a total history. This article argues that an analysis of Foucault’s work actually leads to a view of the museum that is positive and progressive for dismantling the very notions of historical continuity and coherence that Foucault rejects. Th…
Philosophy and the museum: An introduction to the special issue
This paper introduces the special issue by explaining the context of the conference at which the papers were originally presented, suggesting some ways of thinking about the intersection of philosophy and museums, and briefly introducing each paper in the collection. In the main body of the paper I look at a recent trend in museum interpretation and argue that it can be understood in terms of a definition of the museum as a space of representatio…
The Virtual and the Ether: Transcendental Empiricism in Kant's Opus Postumum
The Continuum companion to continental philosophy
Against the fanaticism of forces: Kant's critique of Herder's Spinozism
Peer reviewed
Spinoza's Ethics: An Edinburgh Philosophical Guide
Museum origins: Readings in Early Museum History and Philosophy
Peer reviewed
Jacobi’s Provocative Suggestion
The possibility that Kantian philosophy could be fused with Spinozism was first raised by Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi in his 1785 book Über die Lehre des Spinoza in Briefen an den Herrn Moses Mendelssohn ( Concerning the Doctrine of Spinoza in Letters to Herr Moses Mendelssohn ). The lasting influence of Jacobi’s text, from his interpretation of Spinoza to his rejection of reason, connects Naturphilosophie to Nietzsche, to twentieth-century French …
Herder and Spinozistic Naturalism
Jacobi’s interpretation of Spinoza extended the standard view that Spinozism was dogmatic and atheistic. J. G. Herder’s God: Some Conversations presented an alternative view: Spinozism should be understood as a vitalist naturalism consistent with Christian faith. The immanent relation between Spinoza’s substance and finite modes becomes organic and dynamic for Herder, and Spinoza’s God is now cast as intelligent, wise, and providential. Kant, see…
Critiques of Teleological Judgement
The question of judging organized beings is central to the second half of the Critique of Judgment . In his essay on teleological principles, Kant had argued that organized nature requires us to think an intelligent supersensible cause if we are to avoid appeals to blind purposiveness or intelligent nature. The Critique of Teleological Judgment expands on this argument by establishing the necessity that we judge organized beings teleologically, a…
Deleuze and Spinozistic Difference
As explained in the introduction, twentieth-century French philosopher Gilles Deleuze is included in this book due to his continuity, as a critic and interpreter of Kant, with Jacobi, Herder, and Maimon. Vincent Descombes has remarked that ‘Deleuze is above all a post-Kantian’, and without wishing to reduce Deleuze to rationalism, naturalism, or idealism, I think his response to Kant can and should be read in terms of post-Kantian Spinozism. 1 Mo…
Conclusion: Kant on Spinoza: The Last Words
The final sections of Kant’s Opus Postumum , written near the end of his life, include multiple references to Spinoza. Indeed, with the exception of Newton, Spinoza is the most frequently named figure in the text. 1 These comments are most often found amidst Kant’s reflections on man’s relation to God and the world, as both a ‘moral–practical’ subject following the categorical imperative, and a ‘technical–practical’ subject acting in nature. The …
Against Spinozistic Dogmatism
Jacobi's Concerning the Doctrine of Spinoza reaffirmed that Spinozism was dogmatic rationalism inextricably tied to atheism and fatalism. This enabled Jacobi — however inappropriately — to equate Spinoza's position with Leibniz's on the one hand, and with those of contemporary rationalists like Mendelssohn on the other. Kant already understood 'Spinozism' to name a dogmatic system that asserted the meta physical reality of a substance without int…
Spinozism in the Ether: Kant’s Opus Postumum
In this chapter I turn to Kant’s Opus Postumum , the text in which his relation to Spinozism is at its most puzzling and intriguing. In this final text, Kant appears to affirm a single material substance produced by the subject’s self-positing. This substance, the ether, is at once a material and transcendental condition of possible experience, and goes some way towards satisfying Maimon’s and Deleuze’s demand for a genetic condition of real expe…
Maimon and Spinozistic Idealism
The first four chapters of this book have looked at Jacobi’s and Herder’s different attempts to fuse Kantianism with Spinozism. Both these thinkers argue that the resources of Spinozism should be used to resolve problems in transcendental idealism: the problem of accounting for the being of reality (Jacobi), and the problem of explaining the diversity of nature (Herder). We have seen that both try to find a point of convergence between Kant and S…
Kant and Spinozism: Transcendental Idealism and Immanence from Jacobi to Deleuze
What can we do with Spinoza
Peer reviewed
Spinoza on Philosophy, Religion, and Politics
Susan James is one of the most important scholars working on Spinoza's political philosophy today, and she has now written a much-needed book on Spinoza's major work on politics and religion, the Theologico-Political Treatise of 1670. James takes us through the text topic by topic, and almost page by page, to explain what Spinoza says and to argue for what he means in the context of the religious quarrels and political upheavals of the Dutch Repu…
Spinoza's Philosophy of Ratio
Discover Spinoza's philosophy of ratio, from geometry and reason to bodies, affects and architectureFrom his geometrical method to his theory of mind and body and from his account of the emotions to his doctrine of how to live well, ratio is of prime importance in Spinoza's philosophy. These essays explore the surprisingly varied dimensions of this unacknowledged keystone of Spinoza's thought. They take you from Spinoza's geometrical diagrams to …
Spinoza and architectural thinking
Although Spinoza makes few remarks about architecture, his use of architectural examples, understood in the context of his metaphysics and theory of knowledge, reveal the architect to be a distinctive kind of human thinker. In this paper I explore the kind of thinking the architect does, first by demonstrating that Spinoza distinguishes the architect's adequate way of conceiving a building from inadequate ways of imagining one, and second by cons…
Spinoza's Political Psychology: The Taming of Fortune and Fear
For Aristotle, the purpose of the state is the flourishing of human individuals. For early modern political philosophers, the purpose of the state is the flourishing of the whole. The civil state fosters attitudes and activities through which human beings can achieve social cohesion and national prosperity. Spinoza understands these goals to be intertwined: A flourishing society is made up of flourishing individuals. But to develop the reasoning,…
Spinoza's image of thought: Ratio and the example of the fourth proportional
What constitutes the image of thought for Spinoza? The “image of thought” is a term Gilles Deleuze uses to describe how a philosopher represents thinking, implicitly and pretheoretically. It refers to what a philosopher presupposes about thinking. Spinoza presupposes that human beings think and that thinking comes in three kinds: imagination, reasoning, and intuition. This suggests that thinking may be represented as a ladder ascending from senso…
Philosophy (19 works) · Epistemology (18 works) · Seventeenth-Century Political and Philosophical Thought (15 works) · History (6 works) · Sociology (6 works) · Art (5 works) · Art history (5 works) · Empiricism (5 works) · Law (5 works) · Metaphysics (5 works)