Frans van Zetten Bücher

Sam Harris' first book sparked a global debate on religion's validity. He found that people, from fundamentalists to scientists, commonly agree that science has little to say about human values. This gap has become a justification for religious faith and leads many secularists and moderates to feel compelled to respect the superstitions of the devout. In this provocative work, Harris dismantles the divide between scientific facts and human values, asserting that many misunderstand the connection between morality and knowledge. He encourages us to consider morality in terms of well-being, envisioning the experiences of conscious beings as peaks and valleys on a "moral landscape." Harris believes that science should not only describe moral behavior but also inform us about what we ought to do for the best lives possible. He argues that we possess sufficient understanding of the human brain and its interactions with the world to identify right and wrong answers to crucial moral questions. This challenges moral relativism, which he claims is false and detrimental to humanity. Harris contends that religion's influence on human values can be countered, asserting that there can be no religiously defined morality, similar to how there is no Christian physics or Muslim algebra. Drawing on his expertise in philosophy and neuroscience, he offers a transformative perspective on the future of science and the foundations of human cooperatio

Onderzoek naar het denken van Spinoza (1632-1677) over onsterfelijkheid als mogelijke oorzaak van zijn verbanning uit de joodse gemeenschap in Amsterdam in 1656.