Wim Klever is een gedreven ’facebooker’ die dit medium gebruikt om zijn ideeën over Spinoza, zijn filosofie en zijn tijdgenoten bij een breed publiek bekend te maken. Wim Klever gaf toestemming om de volledige reeks van zijn Facebook-posts (99!) over de Historische Spinoza te publiceren op onze site. Voortaan zijn ze voor onze bezoekers, gegroepeerd én geïllustreerd, beschikbaar. De FaceBook-bijdragen van Wim Klever zijn (meestal) in het Engels geschreven.
16 oktober 2020 Wittgenstein’s ÜBER GEWISZHEIT constituted my farewell to the postwar dominating Logical Positivism in epistemology. His TRACTATUS LOGICO-PHILOSOPHICUS (1921) does not only qua title remind us of Spinoza, but also its content is close to Spinoza, albeit his name is nowhere mentioned. In fact it initiated my ‘conversion’ to Spinoza. From admiring Wittgenstein I turned adoring Spinoza and loving myself as mode / expression of the Universe.
18 oktober 2020 And read it with loud voice and the right accent! CÓRPORIBÚS CAECÍS IGITÚR NATÚRA GERÍT RES (Lucretius, DE RERUM NATURA 1/328) "With blind (i.e. Invisible) bodies Nature is doing its stuff" Lucretius is a main source of Spinoza's physics. The quote is a rhythmic verse to learn by heart. Sorry that I quote Spinoza in Latin, but you may search the indicated place in any translation. It is worth the trouble.
23 oktober 2017 Yesterday I was reading the extremely rich and very detailed passageTTP 6/53: “Raro admodum fit, ut homines rem aliquem, ut gesta est, ita simpliciter narrent, ut nihil sui iudicii narrationi inmisceant; imo, quum aliquid novi vident aut audiunt, nisi maxime a suis praeconceptis opinionibus caveant, iis plerumque ita praeoccupabuntur, ut plane ALIUD, quam quod vident aut contigisse audiunt, PERCIPIANT, praesertim si res acta captum narrantis aut audientis superat, et maxime, si ad eius rem referat, ut ipsa certo modo contingat”. This sentence deserves special attention from those who in actual political discussions talk so easily about ‘facts’.
26 oktober 2020 Spinoza has to be called a physicist and opticus, apart from ethicist.
27 oktober 2020 An interesting point for better understanding Spinoza’s position. Dutch language-use of his master van den Enden in Spinoza’s text. The master had a special preference for the word ‘zaak’, meaning the thing. He actually was a radical realist. He described himself, as one can see on the scanned coverpage of his VPS as “Who most loves things” (meest van zaken houdt), sometimes abbreviated in his signature M.V.Z.H. as in his KVNN (1662). Well, in the KV Spinoza defines God as the “denkende uitgebreide ZAAK” (thinking extended thing), later to become the prominent ‘substantia’ in the Ethica (1675). But in the earlier TTP one suddenly meets in ch.III the very colloquial word combination for announcing a heavy accent on a forthcoming conclusion: ‘Sed res est’ (the thing is). This expression is unknown in classical Latin and will certainly not be found in Sallustius, Tacitus or Cicero. The student of the teacher Latin imitates his Dutch!