The eyes of the mind : proportion in Spinoza, Swift, and Ibn Tufayl

Research output: Chapter in Book / Conference PaperChapter

Abstract

This chapter will examine the interconnected ideas of proportion and relation in Spinoza by reading Spinoza alongside two novels that have been drawn into proximity with his works. The first is a 'Spinozistic novel' avant la lettre, written by the twelfth-century Islamic philosopher Ibn Tufayl, which was translated by a friend of Spinoza's because of its resonance with his philosophy. This novel, I will argue, sheds light on the importance of relation and the absence of relation to Spinoza's three kinds of knowledge. By contrast, the second novel, Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, seeks to criticise Spinozism, and at times Spinoza (see Gardiner 2000 ), in part by considering the idea of proportion and its connection to reason. To begin, however, I will sketch a background to some of the claims concerning Spinoza's effect on English literature in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationSpinoza's Philosophy of Ratio
EditorsBeth Lord
Place of PublicationU.K.
PublisherEdinburgh University Press
Pages155-168
Number of pages14
ISBN (Electronic)9781474420457
ISBN (Print)9781474420433
Publication statusPublished - 2018

Keywords

  • proportion (art)
  • literature
  • Spinoza, Benedictus de, 1632-1677

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