Deus sive natura
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
"One way to read Spinoza's Ethics and make sense of it is to note that in two places Spinoza wrote "God or Nature" (Deus sive Natura). This equivalence can be found in Part IV, Preface and in Part IV, Proposition IV, Proof. If you read "Nature" every time you see the word "God," then the whole book is understandable. When Einstein said that he worshiped Spinoza's God, he meant that he found happiness when he studied nature."--(User:Lestrade) 16:19, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[1] |
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"Deus sive Natura" ("God or Nature") is a dictum by Baruch Spinoza.
The dictum is a historically significant solution to the mind-body problem known as neutral monism. The consequences of Spinoza's system also envisages a God that does not rule over the universe by providence, but a God which itself is the deterministic system of which everything in nature is a part. Thus, according to this understanding of Spinoza's system, God would be the natural world and have no personality.
Nietzsche opposed Spinoza's theory of conatus, for which he substituted the "will to power" (Wille zur Macht); and he replaced Spinoza's formula "Deus sive Natura" (God or Nature) by "Chaos sive Natura".
See also