Hudson Valley Humanists
A Brief Introduction to Spinoza
By Bob Zannelli
The 17th century Jewish-Dutch Philosopher Spinoza, born in
Holland in 1632, has been alternately called an evil atheist
and the God intoxicated Philosopher. He has found favor with
both 18th century romantics and 20th century Scientists. He is
sometimes thought of as the last medieval philosopher as well
as the first modern philosopher. Educated in the Jewish Talmud
and the mystic writings of the Cabbala, he wrote his philosophy
in terms of medieval scholastic metaphysics. Yet in spite of
this, his ideas are totally at home in the world of 21st century
science.
Spinoza was a descendant of Portuguese Jews. The fall of
the relatively enlightened Islamic empire on the Iberian peninsular
and the rise of the Catholic inquisition forced many Hispanic
Jews to seek safe haven elsewhere. Relatively tolerant Holland
was one such place. Nevertheless Spinoza grew up in a society
rife with religious and political tensions. In seems clear
that in 17th century Holland, the Dutch Jews maintained a precarious
acceptance among the Calvinist majority.
Perhaps this helps explains why at the age of 23 Baruch
Spinoza was expelled from the Jewish community for his unorthodox
ideas. The Jewish community no doubt wishing to avoid the attention
of Calvinist by harboring anyone with unorthodox views were often
quick to expel individuals falling afoul of orthodoxy. In any
case, by this time Spinoza had rejected the Jewish religion altogether.
Of his expulsion he is reported to have said, " They force
me to do nothing I would not have done on my own." After
his expulsion Spinoza earned his living as a lens grinder until
his death in 1677 of consumption.
In his short lifetime Spinoza wrote five books, A treatise
on Descartes' Philosophy," "On The Improvement of the
Understanding," The "Theological Political Treatise,"
the "Ethics" and the unfinished "Political Treatise."
However, only his treatise on Descartes' philosophy and "Theological
Political Treatise" (The latter anonymously) were published
in his lifetime. His master work, The "Ethics", was
published shortly after his death.
His Philosophy in Brief
Spinoza stands in the rationalist school of philosophy, and was
greatly influenced by Descartes. However, perhaps even more significantly,
Spinoza admired the work of Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo the
founders of modern day mathematical Physics. Other important
influences were the medieval Jewish philosophers, Maimonides
and Gersonides as well as the Islamic philosopher Avveroes.
In the Ethics, Spinoza lays out his metaphysical and ethical
ideas in what he calls a geometric method. Proposition is followed
by proof and corollary. Today no Philosopher would take seriously
this extreme form of rationalist exposition, and in truth many
of the so called proofs are not particularly rigorous. In spite
of this however, many have come to see this book as a masterpiece
of metaphysical ideas and an insightful description of human
motivations and behavior.
Spinoza, using the terminology of the scholastic Philosophic
tradition begins the Ethics with a discussion of Substance. In
Scholastic Philosophy substance has a somewhat different meaning
than commonly understood today. Substance means inner being or
essence. It derives from the Greek "ousia" meaning
to be or the basic property of existence. Perhaps a helpful analogy
is the way Substance is used in the sentence "The substance
of his remarks...."
Spinoza defines Substance in the ethics as that which is dependent
on nothing else for its existence. (He goes on to "prove"
that there can only be one substance which is not particularly
convincing but for our purposes we can accept this as a basic
assumption.) Since Substance is dependent on nothing else for
its existence Spinoza defines Substance as self caused, that
is, its essence involves existence. In Spinoza's Philosophy,
substance, is the only completely independent entity that exists.
Substance according to Spinoza has an infinite number of
attributes. Spinoza defines an attribute as that which the intellect
perceives as an essence of a substance. However, Spinoza goes
on to say that the Human intellect only has perception of two
attributes, thought and extension, which today we would call
mind and matter. It is important to understand that for Spinoza,
mind and matter are not two independent entities. Rather, they
are merely two different ways that the Human intellect can perceive
reality.( Substance)
In Spinoza's Philosophy, all individual things, which
are dependent on the one substance for their existence are called
Modes. Spinoza defines a mode as a modification of substance
which is dependent for its existence on a causal chain. Modifications
unlike Substance which is eternal, are finite in space and finite
in time. Therefore, every individual thing that exist is a finite
fundamental mode or a composite collection of finite fundamental
modes.
Spinoza equates the idea of God with substance. However in
Spinoza's philosophy, God has no personal characteristics whatsoever.
An identity is drawn between Substance, God and Nature, all different
names for the same entity. Nature is divided into two parts.
Nature Naturans, ( nature naturing) and Nature Naturata (Nature
natured). Nature Naturans is the active processes of nature while
Nature Naturata is the passive results of the activity of Nature
Naturans, the material world. Strictly speaking, God is identified
more directly with Nature Naturans in Spinoza's Metaphysics.
God (or nature) is not viewed as omnipotent. While Spinoza's
God is the ultimate and infinite cause of everything that exist,
he is not a God who acts by will and choice. However, Spinoza's
God is free in the only sense that freedom is allowed in his
philosophy, that is, he is free in so far as he is not compelled
to act from any external cause. In Spinoza's philosophy, God
is the only
completely free being.
Spinoza's God is a not a good and just being. In fact, Spinoza's
God is devoid of any moral characteristics. Most importantly,
Spinoza's God acts for the sake of no ends whatsoever. Spinoza
completely rejects teleological considerations in any form.
Without a free, good and just God the problem of good and
evil loses its cosmic significance. Rather good and evil are
nothing more than the way we view something as a function of
the way it effects us. Anything that helps us attain a goal we
seek we call good and anything that hinders or prevents us from
attaining a goal we seek, we call evil.
Nevertheless, Spinoza is not indifferent to ethical questions.
Spinoza views the unenlightened man as one who is in bondage.
Continually subject to what Spinoza calls the passive emotions,
fear and hatred, the unenlightened man is in bondage to forces
not under his control. Passion rules over reason for the man
in bondage.
Like the stoics Spinoza views human freedom possible only when
the destructive passive emotions are overcome. However this freedom
is not the freedom of the will, a concept Spinoza rejects altogether.
Rather this is a freedom which results from minimizing the effects
of external causes and, in so far at it is possible for a finite
being, having one's behavior self caused.
Spinoza rejects the stoic prescription of suppressing human
emotion as an impossible feat and against the core of human nature.
Rather the only way an emotion can be overcome is to oppose the
destructive emotions with stronger active emotions, emotions
self caused. He advocates opposing reason-less passions with
passions derived from reason. These active passions are the result
of the human quest for the highest possible good. For Spinoza
the highest good that man can have is knowledge of God. He calls
this the intellectual love of God.
Of course here Spinoza is speaking of nothing less than
the love of knowledge, especially knowledge of the natural world.
Spinoza believes that the more we understand, the less we will
be emotionally effected by things beyond our control. For example,
if we understand the causes of Human behavior, the less likely
it will be that we will be offended by bad behavior. Also the
joy of contemplation and scientific understanding is a powerful
active emotion that can often overcome personal adversity. Of
course it is not claimed that the life of reason eliminates all
suffering. Rather the life of reason maximizes the possible good
that any individual can enjoy.
Also since the highest good for the enlightened man is the
pursuit of knowledge, then it is imperative that enlightened
men work for a social order that is conducive to this endeavor.
The pursuit of knowledge requires a free, democratic and secular
society where strife is minimized and free inquiry is promoted.
Clearly, such a society must have reasonable social, economic
and political equality to allow these conditions to flourish.
This concludes my brief remarks on Spinoza. It has not been
possible in this brief essay to give more than a cursory overview
of Spinoza's philosophy. Anyone seriously interested in exploring
Spinoza's metaphysical, religious and ethical ideas are encouraged
to take advantage of the many books written on this subject.
Some of these are suggested below.
Reading
"Spinoza's Heresy" by Steven Nadler
"Spinoza" by Stuart Hampshire
"The Cambridge Companion To Spinoza" edited by Don
Garret
"Behind The Geometric Method" by Edwin Curley
"Spinoza and The Rise of Liberalism" by Lewis S Feuer
"Power State and Freedom, An Interpretation of Spinoza's
Political Philosophy" by Douglas J Den Uyl
"The God of Spinoza, A Philosophical Study" by Richard
Mason
" Baruch or Benedict On Some Jewish Aspects of Spinoza's
Philosophy" by Ze'ev Levy