A Spinoza Reader: The Ethics and Other Works

Albert Einstein was asked in a telegram by Rabbi Herbert S. Goldstein whether he believed in God. Einstein responded by telegram: "I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings." This famous quote is what lead me to seek out and read 'A Spinoza Reader.' The book was one of the most challenging that I have ever read. First, for those who are wondering what is in it and what might be left out, 'A Spinoza Reader' contains the entirety of 'The Ethics', which constitutes most of this book, and so it has only a limited number of Spinoza's other writings. Those few are carefully selected from his primary published work known as the Theological-Political Treatise ('The Ethics' was unpublished in Spinoza's lifetime), along with some unpublished fragments that preceded and foreshadowed `The Ethics', and several letters to his friends which discuss his ideas a little less formally. These letters are helpful in spelling out both what Spinoza means by many of his more abstract fundamental concepts, and how clearly he (I dare say wrongly) supposed his logic and meaning were explicitly self-evident. `The Spinoza Reader' also contains a very helpful 25 page introduction by the translator ('The Ethics' was originally written in Latin with some Dutch), which covers key biographical facts and other background material, so that one need not know much at all about Spinoza to get a good cursory appreciation for his ideas just from the book alone. Written in some secrecy in the 17th Century, and not only unpublished in Spinoza's lifetime but also banned by Orthodox Jews and Catholics for many years after, 'The Ethics' (along with the writings of Descartes, Pascal, John Lock, and a few others) is part of the landmark in human thought with respect to questioning of traditional intellectual authority (particularly religious authority in this case) by the application of logic and reason, which is now known now as modernism; as opposed not only to traditional authoritarianism in the distant past, but also to postmodernism, which seems to question everything, including logic, reason, and even reality itself. The writing in this 300-page book is very tedious (It took me as long to read as it did to read 'War and Peace', which is more than four times longer and not exactly light reading either), primarily because 'The Ethics' is stylistically modeled on Euclid's writings on the logical foundations of Geometry -- but still, for those few folks who have taken classes in the foundations of logic or have studied and enjoyed pure math or college level philosophy and thus who will not be put to sleep by such a brutally non-intuitive approach to knowledge-building -- for those few of us, reading 'The Ethics' is a great way to contemplate the meaning of life and the idea of God as conceived by an original, highly influencial, and intellectually courageous

This literally wonderful introduction to one of the world's great philosophers by one of his major English translators can be a revelation. It concentrates on The Ethics, the work in which Spinoza lays down his thoughts on God and emotions "geometrically." Spinoza took time out from this, his major work, to write the Theological-Political Treatise-a work which, by showing the Bible to be an historical document tied to its time, helped usher in the modern, free state with its separation of church and state, freedom of speech and freedom to worship. Spinoza's ancestors were persecuted in the Spanish Inquisition, moving to Portugal and then to Holland, which showed more toleration; yet Spinoza's own beliefs, based on the universality of reason, the proto-scientific philosophy of Descartes, and the political requirement for freedom to understand the universe without autocratic nincompoops who didn't know what they were talking about, led him to be excommunicated from the Dutch community of Portuguese Jews when he was 24. The Theological-Political Treatise meant at first for a small circle of Dutch Protestant friends, was a key document in the 17th century and that eventually led the civilized world (e.g., the founding fathers of the United States) to realize that, since biblical interpretation depended on a knowledge of history and language, correct understanding of the Bible and God demanded reason. Knowledge of God, as the early, non-institutionalized Protestants realized, was accessible to the individual without clerical interference. It could not be monopolized by a priestly caste but was available to any reader of scripture. Spinoza takes this radical idea one step further, showing that it is not monopolizable by any one sect and, indeed, that it is accessible through inner reflection without even reading the imperfect historical document known as the bible. Spinoza's God is Einstein's God, an awesome, rationally necessary being who does not interfere personally in human affairs. He is far too big for that. Indeed, "He" is impersonal, infinite in comparison to man's finitude. Spinoza argues, not always completely persuasively or without contradiction, that God can be intuited from first principles (he is a "substance" with "infinite attributes") as formally as Euclid could deduce that all triangles add up to two right angles. Ironically-due to the importance the Treatise had as arguably the most important single document in safeguarding the future of freedom to worship and the separation of church and state-Spinoza in the Ethics argues against freedom. Everything we do is necessary, since God, who includes all space ("extension" in Cartesian thought) and thought, is rationally constructed. There is no room for probability, choice, or non-causal factors. (This may be why Einstein to his death doubted that "He...plays dice"-i.e., the intrinsic statistical factor in quantum physics.) In a famous letter (# 58, to Schhuller for Tschirnhaus, in

Curley does a decent job of translating Spinoza, although his penchant for identifying the Latin vocabulary with English cognates, almost without exception, sometimes lacks sensitivity to the content at hand. Both his introductory essay and selection of texts illustrate his peculiar, if not intriguing, analytical interpretation of Spinoza. For beginning readers of Spinoza, these issues will certainly not obstruct the view of Spinoza's extraordinary system. Advanced students who have not mastered their Latin, should consult Shirley or, dare I say, Elwes, for additional perspective on Spinoza's ideas.

The ethics and other writings of Spinoza are the works of pure genius. With the utmost logic, Spinoza shows point by point what is meant by God and how he operates. Spinoza shows that what is meant by God is reality itself. This agrees completely with the definition of God given by God himself in the Bible, who said "I am who am." God is reality itself. To say that Spinoza proved atheism by this book is to beg the question. Everyone who is intrested in knowing who and what God is, should read this book. He also shows what our relation to God should be. One of the greatest books on philosophy ever written.