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The Philosophy of Hope: Beatitude in Spinoza
Can philosophy be a source of hope? Today it is common to believe that the answer is no – that providing hope, if it is possible at all, belongs either to the predictive sciences or to religion.
In this exciting and stimulating book, however, Alexander Douglas argues that the philosophy of Spinoza can offer something akin to religious hope. Douglas shows how Spinoza is able, without appealing to belief in any traditional afterlife or supernatural grace, to develop a profound and original theory of how humans can escape from the conditions of death and sin.
Douglas argues that this theory of escape, which Spinoza calls beatitude, is the centrepiece of his entire philosophy, though scholars have often downplayed or ignored it.
One reason for this scholarly neglect might be the difficulty of understanding Spinoza’s theory, which departs from the standard doctrines and methods of Western philosophy. Douglas's interpretation therefore seeks inspiration beyond the Western tradition, drawing especially on the classical Daoist text Zhuangzi and its commentaries. Here, Douglas argues, surprising resonances with Spinoza’s core ideas can be found, leading to a new way of understanding his strange yet compelling theory of beatitude.
In this exciting and stimulating book, however, Alexander Douglas argues that the philosophy of Spinoza can offer something akin to religious hope. Douglas shows how Spinoza is able, without appealing to belief in any traditional afterlife or supernatural grace, to develop a profound and original theory of how humans can escape from the conditions of death and sin.
Douglas argues that this theory of escape, which Spinoza calls beatitude, is the centrepiece of his entire philosophy, though scholars have often downplayed or ignored it.
One reason for this scholarly neglect might be the difficulty of understanding Spinoza’s theory, which departs from the standard doctrines and methods of Western philosophy. Douglas's interpretation therefore seeks inspiration beyond the Western tradition, drawing especially on the classical Daoist text Zhuangzi and its commentaries. Here, Douglas argues, surprising resonances with Spinoza’s core ideas can be found, leading to a new way of understanding his strange yet compelling theory of beatitude.
- GenresPhilosophy
162 pages, Kindle Edition
Published July 24, 2023
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
September 6, 2023
Couldn’t put the book down. Very accessible, even for non-philosophers, though some metaphysics is helpful to know. Makes me want to read Spinoza.
December 12, 2025
I've stopped and started with this book a few times with other things constantly getting in the way of completing it. But now that I've had the time to properly work my way from start to finish, I'm glad to have read it! Douglas is one of the best Spinoza scholars out there today, and there's plenty in here that stands out to me as well-argued and plausible.
I do want to say, though, that there's also a lot in here that I disagreed with. The least important of these disagreements, first of all, is that I do think the author has misunderstood Sartre. This comes from relying on the Existentialism is a Humanism lecture, rather than Being and Nothingness. EH contains all kinds of distortions of Sartre's philosophy, not the least of which is the claim that 'existence precedes essence' - a claim that he heavily qualifies in his more developed philosophy. I side more with Hagglund and Sartre on questions of ultimate value than I do with Douglas (or Spinoza!), and I am inclined to say that the atheist position has stronger arguments for it than were considered in this book.
My bigger issue is with the interpretation of Spinoza. I don't think enough was done to demonstrate that the affect of emulation is actually so important to the structure of the Ethics. I wish it was so important, because then Spinoza could have said all of the interesting things that Douglas says, but in my reading of the book it's only ever seemed like a fairly fleeting concept.
The final two chapters were the least convincing overall. Why should we take seriously the idea that Spinoza didn't really believe in what Williams called the 'absolute conception of reality'? There are far more developed and nuanced versions of this idea than those which Douglas addresses under the label of Neutral Objectivism. Perhaps this is just me being too wedded to previous interpretations of Spinoza, but it should be acknowledged that reading him as thinking that reality is inherently contradictory and inconsistent is a big departure from how he is normally interpreted. For that reading to work, I'd need to see evidence that Spinoza thinks there can be true contradictions. But he seems like quite a fervent defender of classical logic in all sorts of ways. It's a bit unfortunate that Douglas outsources the philosophical work here to an article he cites by Borcherding. I'd have liked to see why he thinks this reading of Spinoza works (especially since I haven't found Borcherding's reading of Spinoza all that convincing either).
With all of that said, this was, again, a very fun and interesting book. And even if there's plenty in here that I don't agree with, these are at least productive disagreements where I think I can see where the author is coming from.
I do want to say, though, that there's also a lot in here that I disagreed with. The least important of these disagreements, first of all, is that I do think the author has misunderstood Sartre. This comes from relying on the Existentialism is a Humanism lecture, rather than Being and Nothingness. EH contains all kinds of distortions of Sartre's philosophy, not the least of which is the claim that 'existence precedes essence' - a claim that he heavily qualifies in his more developed philosophy. I side more with Hagglund and Sartre on questions of ultimate value than I do with Douglas (or Spinoza!), and I am inclined to say that the atheist position has stronger arguments for it than were considered in this book.
My bigger issue is with the interpretation of Spinoza. I don't think enough was done to demonstrate that the affect of emulation is actually so important to the structure of the Ethics. I wish it was so important, because then Spinoza could have said all of the interesting things that Douglas says, but in my reading of the book it's only ever seemed like a fairly fleeting concept.
The final two chapters were the least convincing overall. Why should we take seriously the idea that Spinoza didn't really believe in what Williams called the 'absolute conception of reality'? There are far more developed and nuanced versions of this idea than those which Douglas addresses under the label of Neutral Objectivism. Perhaps this is just me being too wedded to previous interpretations of Spinoza, but it should be acknowledged that reading him as thinking that reality is inherently contradictory and inconsistent is a big departure from how he is normally interpreted. For that reading to work, I'd need to see evidence that Spinoza thinks there can be true contradictions. But he seems like quite a fervent defender of classical logic in all sorts of ways. It's a bit unfortunate that Douglas outsources the philosophical work here to an article he cites by Borcherding. I'd have liked to see why he thinks this reading of Spinoza works (especially since I haven't found Borcherding's reading of Spinoza all that convincing either).
With all of that said, this was, again, a very fun and interesting book. And even if there's plenty in here that I don't agree with, these are at least productive disagreements where I think I can see where the author is coming from.
March 10, 2024
Easily accessible. An inspiring interpretation of a notoriously difficult but important philosopher.
It's not often that philosophy makes me feel genuinely and deeply hopeful, but this book does.
It's not often that philosophy makes me feel genuinely and deeply hopeful, but this book does.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews