HIS330H5 Chapter Notes -Baruch Spinoza
Document Summary
Spinoza"s "on the origin and nature of the emotions" starts by discussing other writers. Other writers on emotion typically argue that humans disrupt natures order and that humans have ultimate control over everything. Spinoza disagrees with this account on emotions on natures order. He starts by simply saying don t count out emotions nor to even underestimate them. One important one to note is that emotion is defined as. The active power of the said body is increased or diminished, aided or constrained, and also the ideas of such modifications . To the best of my understanding this means that something inside of us that is excited or de-excited to get us to do(or not to do) some actions. The first postulate is that the change mentioned above can occur in different ways and of course they can have no effect at all. He continues that change may happen but it may result in keeping our active state (an activity).
