A seminar on Spinoza's book "Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect" was organized with a presentation by Research Assistant Beril Sercem Şengül from the Department of Psychology, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Üsküdar Üniversitesi. In the seminar held at the South Campus Socrates Hall, Research Assistant Beril Sercem Şengül drew attention to topics such as the rejection of the mind-body duality, the possibilities and types of knowledge, the relationship between knowledge and happiness-joy, freedom or good life (ethos), the method to lead to true knowledge, and the use of knowledge for social benefit.
"What will produce true joy is for man to know nature and himself"
Research Assistant Beril Sercem Şengül stated that the first step in one's journey to find oneself is the individual's effort to discover and understand themselves, emphasizing the need for reciprocal relationships with people. Şengül said: "It is believed that things that can give a person eternal and superior joy when discovered and acquired are emotional pleasures like eating, drinking, sexuality, addictions, as well as wealth and reputation. The crises, sorrows, and dissatisfactions that follow cyclical actions reveal this. When looking at what will produce true joy, it is seen that these are: knowing nature and my own nature, and striving for other people to know this as well. The effort to understand reality is not solely an individual endeavor but a process that must be carried out with other people. Achieving freedom or realizing the good can only be done with others. Being in a reciprocal relationship with other things means producing other things and being produced by them."
"Method develops within the research process"
Research Assistant Beril Sercem Şengül, referring to the knowledge of the famous philosopher Spinoza, stated that there are four different forms of perception in humans and emphasized that to understand the characteristics of the intellect, what is real must be investigated. Şengül said: "The question of how I can use this type of knowledge to perfect human nature and seek truth is important. Spinoza does not seek a new/second method to find the method when searching for an answer to this question. 'Method' is used to investigate the nature of things, to deduce the differences, similarities, and opposites between them. What is called method actually serves to distinguish between what is practically available and what is not. In science or philosophy, the method cannot be prior to the subject of research. The method develops within the research process."
"Failure to understand nature as a whole leads to confusing nature with abstractions"
Şengül stated that thoughts should be determined according to the standard of correct ideas; "What constitutes the specific character of a correct thought must be sought within the thought itself and deduced from the nature of the intellect. Failure to understand the essential elements of nature as a whole leads to confusing nature with abstractions. This, in turn, causes the distortion of the order of nature. If we proceed from the source and origin of nature, there is no reason for us to fear falling into such an error."