http://poj.peeters-leuven.be/content.php?url=journal&journal_code=TVF Recent articles poj@peeters-leuven.be http://dx.doi.org/10.2143/TVF.87.2.3295271 http://poj.peeters-leuven.be/content.php?url=article&id=3295271 Wed, 13 May 2026 07:28:48 +0000 Introduction poj@peeters-leuven.be http://dx.doi.org/10.2143/TVF.87.2.3295272 http://poj.peeters-leuven.be/content.php?url=article&id=3295272 Wed, 13 May 2026 07:29:59 +0000 If crime and sin are nothing positive, how can evil be explained? If there is nothing positive in ideas that makes them false, how is error possible? If reality and perfection are the same thing, how can reality not be completely perfect? These questions, which lie at the heart of Spinozism and are the source of much controversy, are illuminated in an unusual way when we take into consideration the distinction between essence at existence. Evil, error and privation in general receive all the reality they need to explain pain and falsity, while at the same time, reality conserves its right to be absolutely perfect. poj@peeters-leuven.be http://dx.doi.org/10.2143/TVF.87.2.3295273 http://poj.peeters-leuven.be/content.php?url=article&id=3295273 Wed, 13 May 2026 07:31:11 +0000 In E3p3s, Spinoza claims that 'passive states are related to the mind only insofar as the mind has something involving negation: that is, insofar as the mind is considered as part of Nature'. Does this mean being a part of Nature is pure negativity? The aim of this paper is to explore the ontological and ethical stakes of this condition and to show how Spinoza paradoxically uses the qualification of man as a part of nature as a positive deconstruction in some of his argumentative strategies. poj@peeters-leuven.be http://dx.doi.org/10.2143/TVF.87.2.3295274 http://poj.peeters-leuven.be/content.php?url=article&id=3295274 Wed, 13 May 2026 07:33:00 +0000 poj@peeters-leuven.be http://dx.doi.org/10.2143/TVF.87.2.3295276 http://poj.peeters-leuven.be/content.php?url=article&id=3295276 Wed, 13 May 2026 07:36:33 +0000 poj@peeters-leuven.be http://dx.doi.org/10.2143/TVF.87.2.3295277 http://poj.peeters-leuven.be/content.php?url=article&id=3295277 Wed, 13 May 2026 07:38:14 +0000 Nothing in nature is in se good or bad; there is no evil and no purpose in nature. The objective view of things (their view <i>sub specie aeternitatis</i>) disregards the categories that inform human longing, particularly the notions of good and bad. Yet, the philosopher who so strongly defends the objective point of view as the one and only way to truth, at the same time takes the problem of salvation, of the ultimate good, as the central problem of his philosophizing. His <i>philosophia naturalis</i> takes the form of an <i>Ethica</i>. This is the overall paradox to be understood. What is even more paradoxical is this: the capacity to take the strictly objective view about Nature and about ourselves turns out to be an essential element in the realization of salvation. poj@peeters-leuven.be http://dx.doi.org/10.2143/TVF.87.2.3295275 http://poj.peeters-leuven.be/content.php?url=article&id=3295275 Wed, 13 May 2026 07:40:27 +0000