Ethical Implications of the Nature of Knowledge in Plato and Spinoza

Abstract

The theoretical implications of the nature of knowledge and of its ethical dimension in the case of two traditional philosophies, those of Plato and Spinoza, are examined in order to show how the conceptions about good, virtues, and moral norms depend on an appreciation of epistemology. Disciplinary divisions are strategic or educational offshoots and therefore not essential to the philosophical system, which always presents itself as a unit. Despite the many thematic and particular advances made in epistemology and ethics in contemporary times, the past metaphysical tradition preserved, in a remarkable way, an integrated view of the human being, the universe, and God. The aim of this essay is not to return to traditional metaphysics, but to make clear, from two past epochs, the unity of philosophical thought.