BENEDICT (BARUCH) SPINOZA
(1632-1677)
CONTENTS
 Spinoza: An Overview
 His Life and Works
 His Major Ideas
 Spinoza's Writings
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Spinoza was a free-thinking
individual who lived an a rather intolerant time. He grew up as a
Jew in the Christian Netherlands--but found his first encounter with intolerance
was within his own Jewish community, which itself was not tolerant of his
non-conforming theology. He was a pantheist--seeing God in everything.
He was a moral relativist, who did not believe in some set of transcending
religious or civil laws that we ought to conform ourselves to, but who
instead believed in following out our own natural personal imperatives--that
noone else had a right to pass judgment on.
This was not a philosophy
designed to make the religiously conservative community around him very
happy. But it certainly spoke to those souls who were tiring rapidly
of the mean spiritedness of the religiously orthodox--a growing number
of youthful minds who hoped to rise to truths which were vastly higher
than the traditional variety that had brought Europeans to war against
each other mercilessly.
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His Youth
Spinoza was born in 1632 in
Amsterdam of a Jewish family that had moved to the Netherlands from Portugal
to escape persecution. He was given the Hebrew name "Baruch,"
meaning "blessed," which translates into the Latin as "Benedictus."
He grew up in comfort--for his father was a prosperous merchant.
But his mother died when he was only 6 years old. He attended a local
Jewish school where he was taught a Hebrew curriculum--from the Talmud,
to mathematics, to Jewish mysticism. At age 11 his father died--and
his stepsister laid claim to the entire family fortune. Thus Spinoza
was on his own at an early age.
Excommunication from the Jewish
Community (1656)
He attended a Jewish high school
in Amsterdam, where one of his teachers was Rabbi Manasseh ben Israel--the
same individual who was able to work out with Cromwell the re-entry of
Jews to England. In school his freethinking ways got him in trouble
with his very orthodox Jewish teachers. He was at heart a skeptical
humanist with respect to the teachings of the Jewish scriptures.
He would not accept certain of the biblical stories as being literally
true--and viewed Moses as having been no more exceptional than any other
enlightened leader of the past.
At age 18, he moved in with
a teacher, Francis van den Enden, a former Jesuit, and helped him out with
his teaching duties. During this time, he developed his abilities
in Latin and Greek, cultivated the logical method of the neo-scholastics,
and was introduced to the teachings of Rene Descartes.
Finally in 1656, at age 23,
after repeated attempts by the synagogue leadership to get Spinoza to conform
his thinking to orthodox ways--and to move away from the influence of van
den Ende--he was excommunicated from Judaism.
He was free-thinking, yes--but
not indifferent to the opinions of his Jewish community. He tried
to restore the broken relationship with his Jewish community. But
could not find any common ground or point of entry back into full standing
in his Jewish society.
He also at this time began
to apprentice as a lens grinder, building telescopes, microscopes and eyeglasses.
Entry into Secular Philosophical
Studies (1660)
And during this time he cultivated
a circle of friends who delighted in discussing the religious and philosophical
issues of the day (heavily shaped by Descartes). Spinoza found himself
becoming more deeply interested in these matters--and in 1660 he moved
to a village outside Leyden, Rijnsburg, (a gathering place of Cartesian
scholars) to devote more time to his thoughts.
His First Philosophical Works
(1662)
He moved in with Hermann Homan,
and in the Homan cottage Spinoza began to write philosophy. By early
1662 he had put together Korte Verhandeling van God, de Mensch und deszelfs
Welstand (Short Treatise on God, Man and His Well-Being)--from
notes he had begun to assemble in his Amsterdam days--and Tractatus
de intellectus emendatione (Treatise on the Improvement of the Understanding)--originally
intending both writings to be a part of a single work.
He also at this time wrote
the first book of a more ambitious project,
Ethica (Ethics).
He also was a prolific letter-writer, remaining in contact with his study
group in Amsterdam--and taking up a 15-year correspondence with Heinrich
Oldenburg, a secretary of the British Royal Society.
His Commentaries on Descartes
(1663)
The writings of Descartes formed
the focal point of his labors during this time--as Spinoza was deeply involved
in teaching and writing either in support or refutation of Cartesianism.
His work was becoming widely recognized--even a philosophical circle had
been formed to study his works.
From this circle in 1663
came the request for him to publish his commentaries on Descartes' major
work, Principia, as a book of his own, Renati des Cartes principiorum
philosophiae (Philosophical Principles of Rene Descartes).
He Develops the Methodology
for the Ethics
In the meantime he was working
on systematizing his own philosophical thoughts and readying them for print--as
part of his Ethica project. He decided against the dialogue
form of philosophical writing and instead employed the use of proofs drawn
up in the manner of geometry. So...for the next two years,
during which time me moved in 1665 to Voorburg (near The Hague), he concentrated
on finishing the Ethics (in full: Ethica ordine geometrica
demonstrata).
The Tractatus theologico-politicus
(1670)
But just as he was nearing completion
of this work, he turned his attentions to another work entitled Tractatus
theologico-politicus, which he published in 1670. He had been
under criticism since his youth concerning his free-thinking ways and he
felt compelled to write the Tractatus in order to answer accusations,
direct and indirect, that thoughts such as his posed a threat to the intellectual
and spiritual integrity of his society. As he contemplated the completion
of the Ethics his thoughts were turning to the question of its receptivity--especially
given the mood of intellectual intolerance he was feeling around himself.
Indirectly, he was hoping
to set the record straight about a number of misconception floating around
him. He did not see himself as an atheist (though he was quite distinctly
a pantheist). He felt strongly that his commentaries on scripture
were given in the very spirit of scripture itself. Indeed, he felt
most strongly that to try to curb free spiritual inquiry was itself in
violation of everything that scripture teaches. Thus the Tractatus
was written in order to answer the deep intellectual intolerance which
seemed to permeate the culture around him.
In the same year of the publication
of the Tractatus Spinoza moved to the Hague--where he would live
out the rest of the years of his rather short life. Again he delayed
publication of the Ethics and turned his thoughts to writing a Hebrew
grammar. But this too he did not complete, turning instead back to
further work on the Ethics.
Political Dangers
Politics intervened to shape
aspects of his life at this point. Spinoza had come under the approval
of one of the Dutch magistrates, Jan de Witt, and through his support had
been able to bring the Tractatus out for publication. When
in 1672 de Witt was murdered, Spinoza was both outraged--and greatly endangered
by his demonstrating that outrage. Friends convinced Spinoza not
to speak out, but remain silent. Life without a political patron
was more dangerous than ever.
Also, though the Tractatus
had been well received since its publication in 1670, in some parts it
was met with intense anger--within both the Jewish and Christian communities.
His enemies were numerous, and influential. Nonetheless when he was
invited in 1673 to take up the Philosophy Chair at the University of Heidelberg,
he refused. He wanted to focus his efforts on the continuing development
of his philosophical system.
Further--in his naivete,
Spinoza in 1673 decided to take it upon himself to travel to Utrecht, then
under occupation by French troops of the ambitious Louis XIV, to negotiate
a peace between the Dutch and the French. When he returned empty-handed
to the Hague, his enemies were loud in their suspicions of treachery on
Spinoza's part.
Thus the times were not right
for the publication of the Ethics--even though it had definitely
come to completion in 1675.
His Early Death (1677)
But now his health was failing.
Having too long breathed the glass dust from his optical work his lungs
were weakend and finally became diseased. On February 20, 1677 he
died and four days later was buried in Spuy at the New Church.
Ethics Published Posthumously
(1677)
Thus it was only after his death
that the Ethics finally underwent secret publication in Amsterdam.
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His Geometric Methodology
In most every respect Spinoza's
philosophy looks over its shoulder constantly at Descartes. Like
Descartes, Spinoza is entirely Rationalistic, that is, truth moves
deductively from fundamental or a priori truths, to truths that
can be derived logically from those fundamental truths: "If X is
true then it also holds that Y must also be true, because ...."
Like all Rationalists, Spinoza
builds his system of philosophy not on anything that is verifiable by actual
experimentation or any other "checking out" of his ideas in the actual
world around us. In his thinking this world is highly suspect because
we cannot be sure that what we perceive is actually true. All we
can know for sure are our thoughts--and whether they are built on sound
logic--or on illusion and faulty thinking. Like all Rationalists,
Spinoza hopes to establish Truth entirely through the rigors of his logical
method--all developments occurring within the world of pure thought.
This works fine in the realm
of geometry--because all things are true, because they are true by their
very definition. To a Rationalist this is an appealing approach to
truth. But problems develop when we begin to talk about things, especially
about the actual existence of things. Now we are no longer working
in the hypothetical world of mathematics--but in the actual world of things
in existence, even such intangible things as "God." We know that
our system of philosophy works if our original propositions are true.
But how in the world can we demonstrate that our original propositions
are true--so that we can then build up the rest of our philosophical system
of truth? Descartes struggled with the idea--until he came to (he
thought) the irreducible and indisputable proposition: I exist--I
exist because I am even now thinking about my existence. This must
be true.
Maybe--but not necessarily.
God as Pure Substance
Spinoza saw this break-down
in Descartes' thoughts. And he presumed to be able to build a better
logical system of philosophy--by starting not with his own existence (as
per Descartes) but with the proposition that (by definition) existence
exists. Existence exists in the form of pure substance--which works
out to be Spinoza's definition of God. (Having this definition is
why Spinoza claimed that he never was an atheist!).
To Spinoza, substance is
the source of all else in creation--from it all else is derived ("created"
as the Judeo-Christian community put it). Pure substance is the origin
of all else. It is the only thing not created--but is its own cause.
This is definition #1 in Spinoza's system. It is a fundamental truth--true
for Spinoza simply by definition (as all geometric truths must start out.)
Having started his logic
out this way, he cannot formulate a God who is anything else but pure substance.
Such a God can have no persona--such as we find in the created world.
Such a God can have no feelings of his/its own--but simply must be what
its own existence requires it to be. God cannot have a will or design--but
simply is design.
Further, such a God can have
no transcendence--cannot exist apart from or above creation itself--because
Spinoza identifies God with the very essence of creation. God is
the impassive essence or substance of all that is--beautiful perhaps, and
to be adored by loving humans. But God himself/itself cannot love,
cannot act out of grace or a sense of mercy--nor out of any autonomous
judgment. To Spinoza--the traditional Jewish and Christian view of
God was simply a crude anthropomorphism, or assigning human qualities to
God (because we find it more comforting to think of God in such familiar
terms). He would have no part of such a theology.
There is little wonder that
his critics called him a pantheist--because that is exactly how he saw
the universe: infused with the very substance of God. That
includes human thought itself--if it moves purely out of the necessity
of its own being. In this state we are participating in the essence,
very substance of God.
Human Ethics as a Matter of
Natural, Personal Imperatives
To Spinoza, good and bad are
determined not by some sort of transcendent ideals, some code of law that
we all must aspire to, but out of the very logic of our personal being,
a quality which will differ somewhat from person to person.
This moral logic is a matter of the integrity of our thoughts and our actions.
We are to ask ourselves--is this action appropriate to who I am or what
I am? Is it useful to me, given my true nature?
There can be no set of high
ideals to which we are all to aspire, but only the set that works for us,
one by one, given who we are as individuals. We are to live by our
own natural, personal set of imperatives--knowing all the while that others
must live by their own natural sets of imperatives which may or may not
be like ours. We cannot judge others by our own norms. In fact
we really cannot judge others at all--unless we do so entirely from a sympathetic
viewpoint where we are able to evaluate things from their viewpoint.
To hate someone else is the worst kind of breakdown in our moral thinking.
To be able to identify with others is the highest moral achievement.
To Spinoza this is why the
principle of intellectual and spiritual tolerance was of the highest order
of things.
Reverence for God
Likewise, it is highly inappropriate
for a person to hold God to human judgment--for God is neither good nor
evil but simply the essence of all things and conditions as they necessarily
are. God does not cause evil to fall on us--nor is God capable of
instituting good where there is evil. God simply has the capability
of being--as all things are.
Our relationship with God
then, as with our neighbor, is to come to a full sympathy with God, an
ability to think as God thinks--which is something akin to possessing scientific
knowledge about things so as to be able to anticipate their movement or
thought. Our highest religion is to come to share God's thoughts
with him--and to find a deep satisfaction, strength and peace in being
able to do so. In this sense, and in this sense alone, do we come
into the "eternal life" that Christianity and Judaism have long talked
about.
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Spinoza' major works or writings:
Korte Verhandeling
van God, de Mensch und
deszelfs Welstand
(A
Short Treatise on
God, Man and his Well-Being) (1662)
Tractatus
de Intellectus Emendatione (On
the
Improvement of the Understanding)
(1662)
Renati des Cartes
principiorum philosophiae
(Philosophical
Principles of Rene Descartes)
(1663)
Tractatus Theologico-Politicus
(1670)
Ethics
(1677)
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 Miles
H. Hodges
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