Simviation Forums

I have this paper for this class on Spinoza and Leibniz and anyways, I'm forced to be "charitable*" and come up with a supporting argument for Spinoza's argument....

...but I'm so hopelessly opposed toward his work (and his reasons for writing it) that I don't seem to be able to come up with one.

So if any of you smart people can come up with something good (and I mean good enough for me to use) I'll give you all the proper citations and wire you some money through paypal or something (don't expect too much though, I'm still a poor college kid) for your permission to use it.

Anyways, the argument in question is from Spinoza's Ethics I and II...

1. God is an being of infinite attributes.
2. God is the only "substance**" that exist and is the totality  of ALL things that exist.***
3. Whatever we conceive to be in God, is true. He is a being of infinite attributes (omniscient), so what ever is, IS.
4. We have ideas of ourselves and external bodies.
5. All things derive their existence from God. (from 2.)
6. We have true ideas. (from 3 and 5)

Anyways, the paper is due roughly 40 hours, and I will, hopefully, be spending at least 16 of those sleeping. So if y'all can get this back to me in 22, that'd be great.

If you have ideas, feel free to just post. Not gonna criticize you for being wrong. Spinoza is the only one at the business end of my gun here...

*Maybe I got the entire concept of my major wrong, but isn't Philosophy just the science with zero tolerance for margin of errors?

**basically physical and metaphysical things

***There is a lengthy side proof, but he does make the connection. (Whether or not its a valid proof is another matter...)

If I were you I'd be checking out search engines (Wikipedia), etc., because frankly those arguments don't make the slightest bit of sense to me.

I'm sure that someone has defended these precepts in the past so all you have to do is find the documentation, then copy and attribute it, which is essentially how I got through college.

Well, the thing with philosophy is that there really isn't much hugging and kissing. The justification for the piece of work should be self evident and there really is no need for anyone to defend another persons work. Nearly all the responses to published works are objections and criticisms.

I've actually read quite a few articles that were written in response to this book, and they all seem to show that either you have to blindly accept the initial assertions or call bullshit on the entire thing.

I finished thethe rest of the paper last night, and I'm already well over the word limit. So from the looks of it, I'll probably just be a "dick" and "burn in hell" or bashing someone the professor love so much...