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40 Whether it is spelled out ontologically, logically, or otherwise, the perspective of radical immanence leaves no room for any higher power to which one can appeal in case of need or any higher authority one can obey in case of doubt. To go on with one’s life, one can work only with what the world at large can provide for the purpose, or more specifically, with what the world at large makes present at hand and, from the world at large, can be made ready to hand.1 Since the hands in question are the hands of the self, we might say that, in some sense, what lies closest at hand is one’s own self. Hence to go on with one’s life, to conduct one’s life adequately, one ought to care for the self, to work on oneself, and develop one’s own resources. The life that can cope with the world at large, the life in which one proceeds by elucidating what is at issue and by clearing one’s vision for thought and action, is the philosophically examined life, the traditional epimeleia heautou, or care of self.2 Both Wittgenstein and Spinoza were fully aware of this. Recall that Wittgenstein views working in philosophy as “working on oneself ,” while Spinoza starts his quest in the first person, seeking the “supreme good” for his own sake. Concomitantly, although neither the Tractatus nor the Ethics is framed in the first person, it comes to prominent view at some strategic places of the first work and in almost all the scholia of the second, where the geometrical order leaves room for it. For future reference, note that Spinoza presents all his definitions through a first-person clause. Even if the perspective of radical immanence is inextricably involved with the self, working it out is not a self-absorbing or self-absorbed undertaking. To the world at large belong other selves, and some of them are always present at hand. ChAPter tWo Purposes and ends The whole nature of reality lies in its acts. . . . For it there is no other sort of being. —Friedrich Nietzsche, Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks, §5 purposes and ends 41 Care of the self involves care for others. Spinoza holds that “nothing is more advantageous to man than man” (E IV p37s1), for “the good which every man who pursues virtue aims at for himself he will also desire for the rest of mankind” (E IV p37),3 while Wittgenstein says that the goal of the Tractatus will have been “attained ” if his work has “afforded pleasure to one person who [has] read it with understanding ” (TLP Pr ¶1, emphasis added). We can say that care of the self goes hand in hand with care for others: working on oneself while coping with the world, finding one’s place in it and assuming all this responsibly, goes together with helping to make the world better for all. But others are not compelled to help us conduct our own lives. Barring extreme social or political conditions, the corresponding burden, the burden assumed in carrying out the activities structuring one’s life, is exclusively one’s own. Others cannot be answerable for anything regarding one’s way of adult living, and hence the attendant responsibility is, again, entirely one’s own. This is a responsibility with no preset bounds: in being a responsibility toward oneself, it is at the same time a responsibility toward everything that is present at hand and can be made ready to hand, but since what can be made ready to hand might be anything, it is, in the last analysis, a responsibility toward the world at large. As I will show, both Spinoza and Wittgenstein fully assume this responsibility. According to chapter 1, Spinoza and Wittgenstein espoused the perspective of radical immanence essentially by seeking to annihilate God’s overarching position. On this account, both men undertook the task to clear the way for conducting their lives on their own, without need of appealing to any higher authority, assuming in both word and deed the attendant responsibility. In short, both engaged in philosophical activity for exactly the same purpose. But if an activity necessarily has a purpose, it must have an intended end, and there should be ways of evaluating whether and to what extent the activity has attained that end. Here the two authors appear to part company: although both evaluate their philosophical activities as...

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