Spinoza: An Introduction to His Philosophical Thought

by Stuart Hampshire

Few other thinkers have felt so strongly 'the desire to have a unitary view of the world and of man's place within it' — a desire that led Spinoza to make crucial contributions to every major philosophical topic: the nature of knowledge and freedom, the existence of God, ethics and politics, mind and matter, pleasure and perception. In this masterly introduction to a supreme thinker Stuart Hampshire, himself one of today's leading philosophers, describes and assesses Spinoza's ideas on all these subjects and show how they make up a body of thought far greater than the sum of its parts. Only Kant and Hume have been systems-builders on an equally grand scale, and both were deeply sceptical thinkers. Spinoza, by contrast, pushed human reason to its limits 'in puruit of complete and final explanation'; the result, as Professor Hampshire demonstrates, is both exhilarating and extraordinarily impressive.

'This book is a model of its kind . . . it is full, clear — or as clear as the subject allows — agreeably written, wastes no words and shirks no difficulties.'
—The Times Literary Supplement

Genres: Philosophy

176 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1951

Reviews

[Douglas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Spinoza's philosophy is notoriously inaccessible, particularly his "Ethics," with its definitions, axioms, propositions, proofs, and corollaries. He also fits uneasily into the family tree of the history of modern European philosophy starting with Descartes, running through the British empiricists and Kant and his successors, and culminating with the competing schools of analytic philosophy and post-modern Continental existentialism and deconstructionism--he and Leibniz are off to the side somewhere, philosophical bachelors with no obvious progeny.

I had done a couple of tutorials on Spinoza and Leibniz decades ago (with A.C. Grayling, of all people) and recalled almost nothing of them. And then during the pandemic I read "Confessions of a Born-Again Pagan" by one of my former law school professors, who offers Spinoza as a partial antidote to the seemingly insoluble philosophical conundrums posed by the Western philosophical traditions of monotheism, dualism, and free will.

Hampshire's introduction to Spinoza is admirable because it succeeds in being both comprehensive and comprehensible. Anyone who makes their way through this volume will have a solid grasp of Spinoza's philosophy and be ready to take on the daunting task of reading Spinoza himself. The only downsides are Hampshire's penchant for very loooooooonnnnnnnnng sentences divided by semicolons and the sparseness of his criticism of Spinoza. The latter consists of a critique of Spinoza's simplistic analysis of history and government as static and an analytic philosopher's concern, expressed impressionistically, with whether the questions asked by Spinoza, e.g., "What is the cause of the totality of things," ratify linguistic confusions.

Shining throughout is Hampshire's personal admiration for Spinoza. His high regard is well-placed: Spinoza had the courage of his convictions, relentlessly following his argument through to its unpopular "pantheistic" and deterministic conclusions. He endured relentless abuse from, and risked his life at the hands of, the ravings of Christendom and the Jewish establishment. And he was one of the first philosophers to uncompromisingly call for freedom of thought and speech.

In short, I'd be hard pressed to find a better overview to recommend.

[felix · Rating 4 out of 5]

a great introduction to one of the most interesting thinkers of all time. i am super excited to go more into depth during uni !!!

[Hans Ostrom · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best book on Spinoza's philosophy.