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Professor of Religious Studies Heidi Morrison Ravven presented the final Faculty Lecture of the semester on November 21. Her lecture was titled "Did Spinoza Get Ethics Right? Some Insights From Contemporary Affective Neuroscience," based on her recent research on the connections between 17th century philosophy Baruch Spinoza and findings of contemporary neuroscientific research. Professor Ravven said she was excited to share her research on the subject with the Hamilton community, as she does not usually get to speak about this topic in her classes.

The idea of mind-body duelism held by many people today originated in part from Spinoza's contemporary, Rene Descartes, who portrayed life as a battle between the body and the will. Another commonly held idea is Immanuel Kant's theory of ethics as reasonable and rational.  Spinoza disagreed with these theories, instead proposing that human ethical life is natural, stemming from the cooperation of the mind and body towards self preservation. Ravven's research has been into how this claim is supported by recent neuroscientific findings. As she pointed out, Spinoza's ideas can help us become more "nuanced and non-reductive" in the way with think about affective neuroscience, or the biology of emotions.

Ravven presented the 12 naturalist claims of Spinoza that now appear to be supported by affective neuroscience and summarized their overall meaning. One main idea presented by Spinoza is that all external objects and situations are given emotional valence in the mind by their relation to one's survival needs. Therefore, one's emotions and ethical evaluations in regard to an object are inextricably linked to its meaning for our own survival. Another important claim of Spinoza's is his famous doctrine of the Imitation of the Affects, which says that "bodily/affective imitation and contagion is a primitive source of sociality, and thus the default position." Both of these claims, said Ravven, have been supported by recent findings about the neurobiology of emotion and socialization. Cognitive science has shown that reason is often shaped by our bodies and by the contexts of our surroundings, and that neural mapping often consists of documenting objects' relationships to the body.

The Faculty Lecture Series provides faculty with an opportunity to lecture on their research, and is presented by the Office of the Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Faculty.

-- By Caroline O'Shea

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