Spinoza

Justin Steinberg, Valtteri Viljanen

• Publisher: Polity
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781509544967
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

Benedict de Spinoza is one of the most controversial and enigmatic thinkers in the history of philosophy. His greatest work, Ethics (1677), developed a comprehensive philosophical system and argued that God and Nature are identical. His scandalous Theological-Political Treatise (1670) provoked outrage during his lifetime due to its biblical criticism, anticlericalism, and defense of the freedom to philosophize. Together, these works earned Spinoza a reputation as a singularly radical thinker. In this book, Steinberg and Viljanen offer a concise and up-to-date account of Spinoza's thought and its philosophical legacy. They explore the full range of Spinoza's ideas, from politics and theology to ontology and epistemology. Drawing broadly on Spinoza's impressive oeuvre, they have crafted a lucid introduction for readers unfamiliar with this important philosopher, as well as a nuanced and enlightening study for more experienced readers. Accessible and compelling, Spinoza is the go-to text for anyone seeking to understand the thought of one of history's most fascinating thinkers.

1
Spinoza’s Life

1.1 Early life in Amsterdam¹

Baruch Spinoza was born in Amsterdam on November 24, 1632. He came from a family of Portuguese converso Jews, or Jews who were forced to convert outwardly to Christianity after Judaism was prohibited in Spain and Portugal in the fifteenth century. His father’s family emigrated to the Netherlands near the turn of the seventeenth century, when the Netherlands were fighting for independence from the Spanish Hapsburgs in the so-called Dutch Revolt (1568–1648). The aspiring republic cautiously admitted Jews, recognizing that many of these conversos were experienced merchants who maintained trade connections with Portugal and its colonies. In addition to the economic reasons for allowing Jewish settlement, there were also theological and ideological motivations: Dutch Calvinists conceived of themselves as the New Israelites, identifying to some degree with the plight of the Jews; and, more pragmatically, they hoped that the Jews might help to teach them Hebrew so that they could read the Hebrew Bible directly. Still, Jews were regarded with mistrust and were accorded a rather precarious status in Dutch society. Their teachings were monitored for blasphemy, and they were not formally admitted as Dutch subjects until 1657.

The Amsterdam Jewish community in which Spinoza was raised was small and tight-knit, comprised of roughly two thousand members in the middle of the seventeenth century. They occupied a vibrant, bustling neighborhood of Vlooienburg (also known as Jodenbuurt), which was home not only to Jews but also to some Christians, including the renowned painter Rembrandt van Rijn, who lived in the Jewish Quarter between 1639 and 1658, very near Spinoza’s family home. Spinoza’s father Michael was a respected and relatively successful member of this community. He was a merchant who imported dried fruit, among other things. And he served for some time on the parnassim, a board of elders who governed the affairs of the Jewish community and who served as liaisons to the Dutch authorities.

While we know disappointingly little about the early years of Spinoza’s life, we do know that he – who at the time was known as Bento and Baruch, meaning “blessed [one]” in Portuguese and Hebrew, respectively – started his studies at a rather young age in the well-regarded Talmud Torah school. Here he would have studied Hebrew, the 24 books in the Hebrew Bible, and parts of Jewish law derived from the Oral Torah, or Talmud. One of the most prominent teachers at the school was Menasseh ben Israel, a rabbi who engaged with unorthodox thought, such as the work of the French Calvinist theologian Isaac La Peyrère. But the rabbi who is more likely to have been a proper teacher to Spinoza was Saul Levi Morteira, a respected Talmudist, whose weekly study group Spinoza would attend even after he had to abandon his formal schooling at the age of 14 to work in his father’s business. Through Morteira, Spinoza was likely introduced to the works of rationalist Jewish philosophers like Saadia Gaon, Gersonides, and, most importantly, Maimonides.

Some time in his early twenties (in the mid-1650s), Spinoza sought to learn Latin, the language of philosophy and natural science. This led him to another formative intellectual influence in his life: his Latin teacher, Franciscus van den Enden (1602–1674). Van den Enden is a very interesting figure in his own right. He was an apostate Jesuit (and a suspected atheist), a medical doctor, a radical egalitarian, and an abolitionist with a fierce anticlerical streak. He was put to death in 1674, having been found guilty of conspiring to depose the king of France, Louis XIV, in order to establish a free republic in Normandy. And his political ideas, expressed for instance in his Free Political Propositions and Considerations of the State (1665), might well have influenced Spinoza’s own political thought.² The lessons at Van den Enden’s school would have opened up new horizons of thought for the young Spinoza, who would come to be known by the Latinized version of his name: Benedictus or Benedict. They read classical history, literature, and philosophy from such authors as Seneca, Horace, Tacitus, Ovid, Livy, and Cicero. The school also put on productions of Terence’s plays in which it is thought that Spinoza participated. It is also likely that Van den Enden would have introduced Spinoza to the “new science” of Bacon, Galileo, and Descartes, as well as to the bold political theories of Machiavelli and Hobbes. These ideas, together with the Jewish thought of his earlier education, provided a foundation and orientation for the development of Spinoza’s original philosophical system. Through his involvement in Van den Enden’s school, Spinoza would also have gotten to know many members of a group of Collegiants, heterodoxical religious thinkers (including Lutherans, Mennonites, Quakers, Arminians, and Anabaptists) who formed what they called “colleges” that met every other Sunday. Several of these Collegiants would later become part of Spinoza’s philosophical circle, including Simon de Vries, Pieter Balling, Jarig Jellesz, and his future publisher Jan Rieuwertsz.

Spinoza’s involvement with this group of freethinkers would have given him a foothold on intellectual life outside of the Jewish community. In the meantime, during this period, he witnessed and grieved the deaths of one family member after another, resulting in a further loosening of his connection to the Jewish community. His birth mother, Hanna, had died when he was just six in 1638; his brother Isaac died in 1649; and in a span of three years (1651–1654) his sister Miriam, his stepmother Esther, who helped to raise him, and his father all died. Spinoza would write in the Ethics that “[a] free man thinks of nothing less than of death, and his wisdom is a meditation on life, not on death” (4p67), but it is hard to imagine Spinoza at this stage in his life maintaining the high-minded perspective of a free person. At any rate, the death of his father in 1654, when Spinoza was just 21, left him and his younger brother Gabriel to run the family business.

His life as head of a business did not last long. On July 27, 1656, a cherem – a complete excommunication from the Jewish congregation and community – was pronounced against Spinoza. The insecure social position of Amsterdam Jews encouraged elders to wield the punishment of cherem as a form of communal protection so as not to fall afoul of Dutch mores. The importance of enforcing standards of religious propriety was perhaps heightened at this moment, as Rabbi ben Israel was negotiating with Oliver Cromwell for the readmission of Jews into England, and as Jews were finally on the cusp of achieving full recognition as subjects of the Dutch Republic.

Spinoza was hardly the first member of the community to receive this treatment. Ironically, ben Israel himself had been banned – though only for a single day – for a minor form of malfeasance. A more disturbing precedent was the cherem of Uriel da Costa, who in 1640 (when Spinoza was just eight years old) was cast out of the community for denying the immortality of the soul and challenging the status of the Torah as divine revelation. A cherem was typically followed by an invitation to renounce one’s offensive beliefs and rejoin the community, and, in da Costa’s case, the condition of readmission was that he was publicly whipped and forced to lie down just outside of the synagogue, where he was ignominiously trampled by congregants. Just days after being subjected to these humiliations, he took his own life.

Spinoza’s cherem was distinctive in its severity, and he was cast out permanently and unconditionally. The text of the pronouncement reads:

The Lords of the ma’amad, having long known of the evil opinions and acts of Baruch de Spinoza, have endeavored by various means and promises, to turn him from his evil ways. But having failed to make him mend his wicked ways, and, on the contrary, daily receiving more and more serious information about the abominable heresies which he practiced and taught and about his monstrous deeds, and having for this numerous trustworthy witnesses who have deposed and born witness to this effect in the presence of the said Espinoza, they became convinced of the truth of this matter; and after all of this has been investigated in the presence of the honorable chachamim, they have decided, with their consent, that the said Espinoza should be excommunicated and expelled from the people of Israel. By decree of the angels and by the command of the holy men, we excommunicate, expel, curse and damn Baruch de Espinoza, with the consent of God, Blessed be He, and with the consent of the entire holy congregation, and in front of these holy scrolls with the 613 precepts which are written therein; cursing him with the excommunication with which Joshua banned Jericho and with the curse which Elisha cursed the boys and with all the castigations that are written in the Book of the Law. Cursed be he by day and cursed be he by night; cursed be he when he lies down and cursed be he when he rises up. Cursed be he when he goes out and cursed be he when he comes in. The Lord will not spare him, but then the anger of the Lord and his jealousy shall smoke against that man, and all the curses that are written in this book shall lie upon him, and the Lord shall blot out his name from under heaven. And the Lord shall separate him unto evil out of all the tribes of Israel, according to all the curses of the covenant that are written in this book of the law. But you that cleave unto the Lord your God are alive every one of you this day.

While the nature of the “abominable heresies” and “monstrous deeds” that Spinoza is accused of committing remains something of a mystery, it is likely that he was censured for, among other things, denying the existence of a personal, caring God, denying that Scripture was divinely revealed, and denying that there is a separable soul that could survive physical death.

Even though Spinoza had begun to form ties with Dutch freethinkers, such a decisive expulsion would have carried enormous social costs for anyone. Spinoza was thoroughly cut off from what remained of his family and the rather insular Jewish community of his youth; and he was left to find a new form of employment without the benefit of his communal network in a society that was still deeply suspicious of, if not hostile towards, Jews. And yet, were it not for this experience, it is very unlikely that any of us would know of Spinoza today. From this expulsion, a philosopher was born.

1.2 The young philosopher: after the cherem

There is almost no record of what Spinoza’s life in Amsterdam was like in the years immediately following the cherem. All indications, though, are that Spinoza was remarkably resilient. He probably immersed himself further in Van den Enden’s school, likely even lodging there. He also occasionally went to lectures at the University of Leiden, which was at the time a hotbed of Cartesian thought. Notable Cartesian professors there were Adriaan Heereboord, a philosopher of logic, and Johannes de Raey, a former pupil of the great Dutch proponent of Cartesianism, Henricus Regius. Other philosophy students in Leiden at that time who would go on to become friends of Spinoza were Adriaan Koerbagh and Lodewijk Meyer. In the summer of 1661, Spinoza moved to Rijnsburg, a small village near Leiden, maybe to establish closer contact with Leiden Collegiants or perhaps simply to escape some of the distractions of Amsterdam.

Between the cherem and the move to Rijnsburg, Spinoza began composing what is likely his fir...