O erro de Espinosa: um estudo sobre a sua questão sobre o suicídio

• Ano de defesa: 2024
• Autor(a) principal: Rocha, Tarcísio Diego da
• Tipo de documento: Tese
• Tipo de acesso: Acesso aberto
• Idioma: por
• Instituição de defesa: Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo; BR; Mestrado em Filosofia; Centro de Ciências Humanas e Naturais; UFES; Programa de Pós-Graduação em Filosofia
• Palavras-chave em Português: Identidade pessoal; Determinação; Liberdade; Filosofia
• Link de acesso: http://repositorio.ufes.br/handle/10/17960

The core of this study is to investigate and debate the most significant requirements for understanding the question of suicide in Spinoza’s philosophy. For him, suicide would be impossible, and this thesis is based on one of his most basic ontological conceptions: substance cannot cause its own non-existence. This point of view extends to finite modes, which, although determined, are, unlike substance, not necessary. Under Spinoza’s strong determinism, every entity in duration is endowed with a universally applied principle of selfpreservation. Therefore, there could be no internal principle of self-destruction, since all destruction should stem from something out of the individual or thing. Thus, suicides would be considered impractical. In this way, there is a strong conflict between this systematic philosophy and observable experiences. The Dutch philosopher argues that an extended individual is a composite of several other smaller individuals sustained by a structure, just as the mind is a composite of several (related) ideas. Both the composite body and the composite mind are inexorably determined. Spinoza rejects the thesis of free will and denies freedom to the act of suicide, because, he says, the human being cannot be an empire within an empire. However, in the course of Ethica, Spinoza himself seems to gradually soften his excessively strong, deterministic theses from the Pars Prima forwards. Although he doesn’t explicitly acknowledge it, in at least one of his explanatory models in E IV, prop. 20, esc., in which he reports three cases of self-caused deaths, particularly in the case of Seneca, Spinoza tacitly grants some freedom to the agent, since the suggested solution that Seneca was coerced by mental representations to kill himself seems insufficient. We conclude that Spinoza’s philosophy of action makes significant contributions to the discussion of suicide by rejecting supernatural determinations and prejudices, replacing it by the axis of causal investigation of natural causes, which, we suggest, may include intra-human causes. On the other hand, we seek to challenge the theory, which we consider flawed, that no one can wish to die. We argue that Spinoza’s error lies in the universality and unfailing character of the conatus and in the conception of suicide as an impossible act. Suicide is considered by Spinoza to be a logical chimera from the point of view of understanding, conceivable only through the same kind of knowledge that leads us to imagine talking trees.