(1632—1677)
Benedict de Spinoza was among the most important of the
post-Cartesian philosophers who flourished in the second half of the 17th
century. He made significant contributions in virtually every area of
philosophy, and his writings reveal the influence of such divergent sources as Stoicism,
Jewish Rationalism, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Descartes, and a variety of heterodox
religious thinkers of his day. For this reason he is difficult to categorize,
though he is usually counted, along with Descartes and Leibniz, as one of the
three major Rationalists. Given Spinoza’s devaluation of sense perception as a
means of acquiring knowledge, his description of a purely intellectual form of
cognition, and his idealization of geometry as a model for philosophy, this
categorization is fair. But it should not blind us to the eclecticism of his
pursuits, nor to the striking originality of his thought.
Among philosophers, Spinoza is best known for
his Ethics, a monumental work that presents an ethical vision unfolding out of
a monistic metaphysics in which God and Nature are identified. God is no longer
the transcendent creator of the universe who rules it via providence, but
Nature itself, understood as an infinite, necessary, and fully deterministic
system of which humans are a part. Humans find happiness only through a
rational understanding of this system and their place within it. On account of
this and the many other provocative positions he advocates, Spinoza has
remained an enormously controversial figure. For many, he is the harbinger of
enlightened modernity who calls us to live by the guidance of reason. For
others, he is the enemy of the traditions that sustain us and the denier of
what is noble within us. After a review of Spinoza’s life and works, this
article examines the main themes of his philosophy, primarily as they are set
forth in the Ethics.
1. Life and Works
Spinoza came into the world a Jew. Born in
1632, he was the son of Marrano parents. They had immigrated to Amsterdam from
Portugal in order to escape the Inquisition that had spread across the Iberian
Peninsula and live in the relatively tolerant atmosphere of Holland. Spinoza's
father, Michael, was a successful merchant and a respected member of the
community. His mother, Hanna, the second of Michael's three wives, died in 1638,
just before Spinoza was to turn six.
The young Spinoza, given the name Baruch, was
educated in his congregation's academy, the Talmud Torah school. There he
received the kind of education that the community deemed necessary to
constitute one as an educated Jew. This largely consisted of religious study ,
including instruction in Hebrew, liturgy, Torah, prophetic writings, and
rabbinical commentaries. Although Spinoza no doubt excelled in these, he did
not move on to the higher levels of study which focused on the Talmud and were
typically undertaken by those preparing for the rabbinate. Whether by desire or
by necessity, Spinoza left the school in order to work in his father's
business, which he eventually took over with his half-brother, Gabriel.
The Jewish community in Amsterdam was by no
means a closed one , but Spinoza's commercial activities put him in touch with
more diverse currents of thought than those to which he had hitherto been
exposed. Most significantly, he came into contact with so-called
'free-thinking' Protestants - dissenters from the dominant Calvinism – who
maintained a lively interest in a wide range of theological issues, as well as
in the latest developments in philosophy and science. This naturally included
the work of Descartes, which was regarded by many in Holland to be the most
promising of several alternatives to scholasticism that had emerged in recent
decades. In order to discuss their interests, these free-thinkers organized
themselves into small groups, they called colleges, which met on a regular
basis. Spinoza may have attended such meetings as early as the first half of
the 1650's, and it is most likely here that he received his first exposure to
Cartesian thought.
This is not to say that Spinoza ceased to mine
the resources of his own tradition - he became steeped, for example, in the
writings of such philosophically important figures as Maimonides and Gersonides
- but his intellectual horizons were expanding and he was experiencing a
restlessness that drove him to look further afield. It was at this time that he
placed himself under the tutelage of an ex-Jesuit, Franciscus Van den Enden,
who had recently set up a Latin school in Amsterdam. Van den Enden turned out
to be the perfect teacher for Spinoza. In addition to having an excellent
reputation as a Latinist, he was a medical doctor who kept abreast of all that
was new in the sciences. He was also notorious for his allegedly irreligious
cast of mind, and he was a passionate advocate of democratic political ideals.
It is safe to say that Spinoza's studies with Van den Enden included more than
lessons on how to decline nouns.
Spinoza's intellectual reorientation, however,
came at a cost . His increasingly unorthodox views and, perhaps, laxity in his
observance of the Jewish law strained his relations with the community.
Tensions became so great that, in 1656, the elders of the synagogue undertook
proceedings to excommunicate him. Without providing details, the writ of
excommunication accuses him of 'abominable heresies' and ‘monstrous deeds’. It
then levels a series of curses against him and prohibits others from
communicating with him, doing business with him, reading anything he might
write, or even coming into close proximity with him. Spinoza may still have
been a Jew, but he was now an outcast.
Little is known about Spinoza's activities in
the years immediately following his excommunication. He continued his studies
with Van den Enden and occasionally took up residence in his teacher's home. As
it was now impossible for him to carry on in commerce, it was most likely at
this time that he took up lens grinding as an occupation. There is also
evidence that he traveled periodically to Leiden to study at the university.
There he would have received formal instruction in Cartesian philosophy and
become familiar with the work of prominent Dutch Cartesians. In 1661, he
settled near Leiden, in the town of Rijnsburg.
It was during this same period, in the late
1650's, that Spinoza embarked upon his literary career. His first work, the
Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect, is an attempt to formulate a
philosophical method that would allow the mind to form the clear and distinct
ideas that are necessary for its perfection. It contains, in addition,
reflection upon the various kinds of knowledge, an extended treatment of
definition, and a lengthy analysis of the nature and causes of doubt. For
reasons that are unknown, theTreatise was left unfinished, though it appears
that Spinoza always intended to complete it. Shortly thereafter, while in
Rijnsburg, Spinoza set to work on his Short Treatise on God, Man, and His
Well-Being. This work, circulated privately among friends, foreshadows many of
the themes of his mature work, the Ethics. Most notably, it contains an unambiguous
statement of the most famous of Spinoza's theses - the identity of God and
Nature.
Spinoza's stay in Rijnsburg was brief. In 1663
he moved to the town of Voorburg, not far from The Hague, where he settled into
a quiet, but busy, life. At the behest of friends, he immediately set about
preparing for publication a set of lessons that he had given to a student in
Leiden on Descartes'sPrinciples of Philosophy. The result was the only work
that he was to publish under his own name, now Latinized to Benedict: René
Descartes's Principles of Philosophy, Parts I and II, Demonstrated According to
the Geometric Method by Benedict de Spinoza of Amsterdam. As a condition of
publication, Spinoza had his friend, Lodewijk Meyer, write a preface to the
work, warning the reader that his aim was exposition only and that he did not
endorse all of Descartes's conclusions. He also appended a short piece,
entitled Metaphysical Thoughts, in which he sketched some of his own views.
Despite his admiration for Descartes, Spinoza did not want to be seen as a
Cartesian.
Spinoza's work on Descartes shows him to have
been interested from early on in the use of geometric method in philosophy. In
addition to putting parts of the Principles into geometric form, he began
experimenting with geometric demonstrations of material taken from his own
Short Treatise. It was out of this experimentation that the idea arose for a
fully geometric presentation of his thought. He began work on this sometime in
the early 1660's, and by 1665 substantial portions of what was to become
theEthics were circulating in draft form among his friends back in Amsterdam.
Though he was well into the project by then, the political and religious
climate of the day made Spinoza hesitant to complete it . He chose to exercise
caution and suspended work on it, turning instead to a book that would prepare
an audience receptive to the Ethics. This was the Theological-Political
Treatise, which he completed and published anonymously in 1670.
Spinoza's aim in the Theological-Political
Treatise was to argue that the stability and security of society is not
undermined but, rather, enhanced by freedom of thought, meaning primarily the
freedom to philosophize. As is clear from the text, he considered the primary
threat to this freedom emanated from the clergy, whom he accused of playing
upon the fears and superstitions of people in order to maintain power. His
solution was to divest the clergy of all political power, even to the point of
placing authority over the practice of religion in the hands of the sovereign.
The sovereign, Spinoza argued, should extend broad liberties within this
domain, requiring adherence to no more than a minimal creed that was neutral
with respect to competing sects and the meaning of which was open to a variety
of interpretations. This, he hoped, would allow philosophers the freedom to do
their work unencumbered by the constraints of sectarianism.
As was to be expected, the
Theological-Political Treatise was met with a firestorm of criticism. It was
condemned as a work of evil, and its author was accused of having nefarious
intentions in writing it. Even some of Spinoza's closest friends were deeply
unsettled by it. Though he had assiduously tried to avoid it, Spinoza found
himself embroiled in heated religious controversy and saddled with a reputation
for atheism, something he greatly resented.
Spinoza's last move, in 1670, was to The Hague,
where he was to live out his remaining years. Besides having to deal with
fallout from his Theological-Political Treatise, he witnessed a political
revolution that culminated in the murder of the Grand Pensionary of Holland,
Jan De Witt, along with his brother, Cornelius, by an angry mob of
Orangist-Calvinists. Spinoza admired De Witt for his liberal policies and was
horrified at the murder. With the ascent of the Orangist-Calvinist faction, he
felt his own situation to be tenuous.
Despite these distractions, Spinoza pressed on.
He undertook new projects, including the writing of a Hebrew grammar, and he
turned back to work on the Ethics. Given the hostility with which
theTheological-Political Treatise was met and the realities of the new
political landscape, he must have done so with a deep sense of pessimism about
its chances for success. By 1675 it was complete. As he perceived his enemies
to have grown in influence and opportunity, however, Spinoza decided against
publishing it. Public viewing of the definitive statement of his philosophy
would have to wait until after his death.
By this time Spinoza was in a state of failing
health. Weakened by a respiratory illness, he devoted the last year of his life
to writing a work of political philosophy, his Political Treatise. Though left
unfinished at his death, Spinoza's intention was to show how governments of all
types could be improved and to argue for the superiority of democracy over
other forms of political organization. Following the lead of Machiavelli and
Hobbes, his argument was to be non-utopian, based on a realistic assessment of
human nature drawn from the psychological theory set forth in the Ethics. In
the part he did finish, Spinoza showed himself to be an astute analyst of
diverse constitutional forms and an original thinker among liberal social
contract theorists.
Spinoza died peacefully in his rented room in
The Hague in 1677. He left no will, but the manuscripts of his unpublished
works - the Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect, the Ethics, the Hebrew
Grammar, and the Political Treatise - along with his correspondence were found
in in his desk. These were immediately shipped to Amsterdam for publication,
and in short order they appeared in print as B.D.S. Opus Posthuma. But even in
death Spinoza could not escape controversy; in 1678, these works were banned
throughout Holland.
2. Geometric Method and the Ethics
Upon opening Spinoza's masterpiece, the Ethics,
one is immediately struck by its form. It is written in the style of a geometrical
treatise, much like Euclid's Elements, with each book comprising a set of
definitions, axioms, propositions, scholia, and other features that make up the
formal apparatus of geometry. One wonders why Spinoza would have employed this
mode of presentation. The effort it required must have been enormous, and the
result is a work that only the most dedicated of readers can make their way
through.
Some of this is explained by the fact that the
seventeenth century was a time in which geometry was enjoying a resurgence of
interest and was held in extraordinarily high esteem, especially within the
intellectual circles in which Spinoza moved. We may add to this the fact that
Spinoza, though not a Cartesian, was an avid student of Descartes's works. As is
well known, Descartes was the leading advocate of the use of geometric method
within philosophy, and his Meditations was written more geometrico, in the
geometrical style. In this respect the Ethics can be said to be Cartesian in
inspiration.
While this characterization is true, it needs
qualification. The Meditations and the Ethics are very different works, not
just in substance, but also in style. In order to understand this difference
one must take into account the distinction between two types of geometrical
method, the analytic and the synthetic. Descartes explains this distinction as
follows:
Analysis shows the true way by means of which
the thing in question was discovered methodically and as it were a priori, so
that if the reader is willing to follow it and give sufficient attention to all
points, he will make the thing his own and understand it just as perfectly as
if he had discovered it for himself. . . . . Synthesis, by contrast, employs a
directly opposite method where the search is, as it were, a posteriori . . . .
It demonstrates the conclusion clearly and employs a long series of
definitions, postulates, axioms, theorems and problems, so that if anyone
denies one of the conclusions it can be shown at once that it is contained in
what has gone before, and hence the reader, however argumentative or stubborn
he may be, is compelled to give his assent. (CSM II,110-111)
The analytic method is the way of discovery.
Its aim is to lead the mind to the apprehension of primary truths that can serve
as the foundation of a discipline. The synthetic method is the way of
invention. Its aim is to build up from a set of primary truths a system of
results, each of which is fully established on the basis of what has come
before. As the Meditations is a work whose explicit aim is to establish the
foundations of scientific knowledge, it is appropriate that it employs the
analytic method. The Ethics, however, has another aim, one for which the
synthetic method is appropriate.
As its title indicates, the Ethics is a work of
ethical philosophy. Its ultimate aim is to aid us in the attainment of
happiness, which is to be found in the intellectual love of God. This love,
according to Spinoza, arises out of the knowledge that we gain of the divine
essence insofar as we see how the essences of singular things follow of
necessity from it. In view of this, it is easy to see why Spinoza favored the
synthetic method. Beginning with propositions concerning God, he was able to
employ it to show how all other things can be derived from God. In grasping the
order of propositions as they are demonstrated in the Ethics, we thus attain a
kind of knowledge that approximates the knowledge that underwrites human
happiness. We are, as it were, put on the road towards happiness. Of the two
methods it is only the synthetic method that is suitable for this purpose.
3. Metaphysics
Although the Ethics is not principally a work
of metaphysics, the system it lays out stands as one of the great monuments in
the tradition of grand metaphysical speculation. What is perhaps most
noteworthy about this system is that it is a species of monism - the doctrine
that all of reality is in some significant sense one. In Spinoza's case, this
is exemplified by the claim that there is one and only one substance. This
substance he identifies as God. While monism has had its defenders in the west,
they have been few and far between. Spinoza is arguably the greatest among
them.
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