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Ethics
In the genre of Christian philosophers, Spinoza presents a geometric argument for the necessary existence of God as the one absolute substance underlying all other substance. From the necessity of God's existance, he derives the laws of existence, those of nature, and the ethical principles animating human conduct. In this sweeping volume that covers a wide range of topics from metaphysics, epistemology, and theology, Spinoza addresses the key concepts of freedom, the existence of evil, and the ultimate purpose of humanity.
310 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1677
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Baruch Spinoza
730 books2,054 followersControversial pantheistic doctrine of Dutch philosopher and theologian Baruch Spinoza or Benedict advocated an intellectual love of God; people best know
Ethics
, his work of 1677.
People came considered this great rationalist of 17th century.
In his posthumous magnum opus, he opposed mind–body dualism of René Descartes and earned recognition of most important thinkers of west. This last indisputable Latin masterpiece, which Spinoza wrote, finally turns and entirely destroys the refined medieval conceptions.
After death of Baruch Spinoza, often Benedictus de Spinoza, people realized not fully his breadth and importance until many years. He laid the ground for the 18th-century Enlightenment and modern Biblical criticism, including conceptions of the self and arguably the universe. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel said of all contemporaries, "You are either a Spinozist or not a philosopher at all."
People came considered this great rationalist of 17th century.
In his posthumous magnum opus, he opposed mind–body dualism of René Descartes and earned recognition of most important thinkers of west. This last indisputable Latin masterpiece, which Spinoza wrote, finally turns and entirely destroys the refined medieval conceptions.
After death of Baruch Spinoza, often Benedictus de Spinoza, people realized not fully his breadth and importance until many years. He laid the ground for the 18th-century Enlightenment and modern Biblical criticism, including conceptions of the self and arguably the universe. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel said of all contemporaries, "You are either a Spinozist or not a philosopher at all."
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
March 8, 2012
The continental philosophers who have most impressed me have been Locke, for his political philosophy; Hume, for his consistency; Nietzsche, for his radical creativity; Spinoza, for his alluring materialism; and Kant, for his comprehensive reconciliation of materialism and idealism. Of the lot, I have studied and known Kant and Nietzsche best, Spinoza least, yet Spinoza haunts and I may return.
Both Spinoza and Kant were mystics in the sense that both of them point towards the inscuitable. For Spinoza the mystery has to do with his strict causal materialism as it is linked, on the one hand, to mind and, on the other, to freedom. In part this is the negative freedom of the philosopher, the freedom from the snares of ordinary life, but it is also more than that, much more than that.
The mystery towards which Spinoza's philosophy points is that of the cosmos, which, as Matter is to Mind, amounts to god, and the freedom, the positive freedom, his work points to is that of the ground of being, a certain omnipotence.
I think that what Spinoza and Kant do is, in this grand manner, basically the same, but while Spinoza starts more from a determinist materialism, Kant starts more from the standpoint of (transcendental) idealism, his concepts of the understanding suggesting much earlier on the Ideas of (Divine) Reason.
Towards the end of graduate school I befriended a Loyola philosophy professor, Phil Moran, who had studied at the University of Moscow, the old University of Moscow, pre-Gorbachev. In the course of one of our long talks at my home he noted that Spinoza was big in Soviet academe. That was a surprise initially, but the more I thought about it the more sense it made. Spinoza does come across, initially, as compatible with dialectical materialism, enough to pass the censors and do his subversive work...
Both Spinoza and Kant were mystics in the sense that both of them point towards the inscuitable. For Spinoza the mystery has to do with his strict causal materialism as it is linked, on the one hand, to mind and, on the other, to freedom. In part this is the negative freedom of the philosopher, the freedom from the snares of ordinary life, but it is also more than that, much more than that.
The mystery towards which Spinoza's philosophy points is that of the cosmos, which, as Matter is to Mind, amounts to god, and the freedom, the positive freedom, his work points to is that of the ground of being, a certain omnipotence.
I think that what Spinoza and Kant do is, in this grand manner, basically the same, but while Spinoza starts more from a determinist materialism, Kant starts more from the standpoint of (transcendental) idealism, his concepts of the understanding suggesting much earlier on the Ideas of (Divine) Reason.
Towards the end of graduate school I befriended a Loyola philosophy professor, Phil Moran, who had studied at the University of Moscow, the old University of Moscow, pre-Gorbachev. In the course of one of our long talks at my home he noted that Spinoza was big in Soviet academe. That was a surprise initially, but the more I thought about it the more sense it made. Spinoza does come across, initially, as compatible with dialectical materialism, enough to pass the censors and do his subversive work...
April 22, 2017
I didn't care for Spinoza, to put it simply. First of all, and probably most importantly is, I can't stand fatalism. I hate it in philosophy and I really hate it in theology. Spinoza supports absolute causality; even down to human emotions. His trivializing of human and divine nature is so annoying and problematic that it is surprising that he became so influential. While he gets some things right that Descartes got wrong (namely, by countering the inane method of Cartesian doubt), he gets so many other things wrong, that I cannot say he was much better than Descartes. I do find it befuddling that often people will cite Descartes and Spinoza as pioneers of modern philosophy. This is a surprising assertion because, firstly, philosophy has never taken a prolonged hiatus since Pythagoras and the Pre-Socratics. It is surprising secondly, because I do not see much that they brought to the table that was new and constructive. I think the people who place them in a unique position in the history of philosophy intend to mean that their output contributed to skepticism and enlightenment notions. I still don't see much that was novel, however. Skepticism was already a component of philosophy. If these same people mean to get across that they beget systems that were not overtly religious, than that would not constitute a first either. Certainly, philosophy, even during the Christian centuries, was never bound to only theological matters. Much of Ockham, whom I've read, was not always overtly religious, philosophically speaking. So, I definitely don't think that non-religious philosophy started with these two. It might be that they are considered first in developing particular methods and systems. Even here I don't see where they are unique in the history of philosophy.
Spinoza is often called a pantheist; while this is a suitable description to a degree, his pantheism is not consistent and is incredibly problematic. As far as mundane mechanics go, his pantheism works somewhat, although it is simplistic and, in my opinion, silly. He gets into trouble once he discourses on Divine nature. Unity or "pan-ness" is there left at the door and is no longer applicable without issues. Spinoza's god suffers from a fractured nature: his substance is removed from his attributes and his attributes are subject to his nature. God isn't free in Spinoza's system, He is subject to His own nature. This must entail, I suppose, that His attributes and His substance are somehow different from His nature. What we have is a god that is made up of various parts. What his nature is, I can't quite say, because I didn't note any discussion of it in here as such. Spinoza believes that the world of causal mechanics shares in God's substance. His argument seemed to hinge on the idea that an infinite substance cannot be bounded, so there can be no other substance save one, and that is God's, ultimately. Of course, Spinoza does seem to make distinctions between God's infinite attributes and His substance which must become finite at some point. Spinoza does not elaborate on how infinite attributes/substance can become finite. It seems that at some point, most likely in God, infinite substance becomes finite as thought and extension. All of this makes Spinoza's pantheism problematic. He simply removes a multiplicity of substances from one place, namely, from a mundane mechanical universe, and places multiplicity within God Himself. Regardless of whether or not Spinoza does some sleight of hand and uses different terms to describe God's nature, his god is, ultimately, a divided and multiform god; so pantheism is only a fitting description of Spinozism with very particular caveats and provisos.
I was probably at my most impatient while reading Spinoza's discourse regarding emotions. Here he vacillates quite a bit. All emotions in Spinoza's causal universe are simply reactionary states. Love is both a negative and positive emotion for Spinoza. It's positive when it's intellectual (whatever the hell that means) and negative when it entails compassion and pity, which is usually included in the typical definition of love. I should enlighten the reader that Spinoza is rather adamant about using his own definitions of words. This is something he tries to get across at the very beginning of the works included here. His definitions are sometimes quite equivocal though, so consistency is a problem for Spinoza; especially in his discussion of emotions. As far as love goes, one must note that Spinoza's definition is not only idiosyncratic but pretty ridiculous. He attempts to make love both an emotion and not an emotion. He more than once claims that good and evil are simply pleasure and pain and nothing more. How one can say that pleasure is intellectual, I don't quite know, but suffice it to say that Spinoza's equivocal and ambivalent use of terminology would never aid someone in putting his ethics into practical use. Also, his ethical system is so apathetic that I can't see it being anything but a negotiable and capricious ethics.
Spinoza helped foment deistic thought. So I suppose he holds a unique position in that regard. There was a time when I identified with deism. I now see it for what it is. Deism denies God in practice but accepts Him in theory. Atheism denies God in both theory and in practice. While I think deism is certainly far more intelligent than atheism, it is, practically speaking, no different; so it's little wonder that deism gave way to atheism during the age of enlightenment. Spinoza is a deist's theologian. Since I left deistic thought a long time ago, I don't see much that speaks to me now in this kind of writing.
Spinoza is often called a pantheist; while this is a suitable description to a degree, his pantheism is not consistent and is incredibly problematic. As far as mundane mechanics go, his pantheism works somewhat, although it is simplistic and, in my opinion, silly. He gets into trouble once he discourses on Divine nature. Unity or "pan-ness" is there left at the door and is no longer applicable without issues. Spinoza's god suffers from a fractured nature: his substance is removed from his attributes and his attributes are subject to his nature. God isn't free in Spinoza's system, He is subject to His own nature. This must entail, I suppose, that His attributes and His substance are somehow different from His nature. What we have is a god that is made up of various parts. What his nature is, I can't quite say, because I didn't note any discussion of it in here as such. Spinoza believes that the world of causal mechanics shares in God's substance. His argument seemed to hinge on the idea that an infinite substance cannot be bounded, so there can be no other substance save one, and that is God's, ultimately. Of course, Spinoza does seem to make distinctions between God's infinite attributes and His substance which must become finite at some point. Spinoza does not elaborate on how infinite attributes/substance can become finite. It seems that at some point, most likely in God, infinite substance becomes finite as thought and extension. All of this makes Spinoza's pantheism problematic. He simply removes a multiplicity of substances from one place, namely, from a mundane mechanical universe, and places multiplicity within God Himself. Regardless of whether or not Spinoza does some sleight of hand and uses different terms to describe God's nature, his god is, ultimately, a divided and multiform god; so pantheism is only a fitting description of Spinozism with very particular caveats and provisos.
I was probably at my most impatient while reading Spinoza's discourse regarding emotions. Here he vacillates quite a bit. All emotions in Spinoza's causal universe are simply reactionary states. Love is both a negative and positive emotion for Spinoza. It's positive when it's intellectual (whatever the hell that means) and negative when it entails compassion and pity, which is usually included in the typical definition of love. I should enlighten the reader that Spinoza is rather adamant about using his own definitions of words. This is something he tries to get across at the very beginning of the works included here. His definitions are sometimes quite equivocal though, so consistency is a problem for Spinoza; especially in his discussion of emotions. As far as love goes, one must note that Spinoza's definition is not only idiosyncratic but pretty ridiculous. He attempts to make love both an emotion and not an emotion. He more than once claims that good and evil are simply pleasure and pain and nothing more. How one can say that pleasure is intellectual, I don't quite know, but suffice it to say that Spinoza's equivocal and ambivalent use of terminology would never aid someone in putting his ethics into practical use. Also, his ethical system is so apathetic that I can't see it being anything but a negotiable and capricious ethics.
Spinoza helped foment deistic thought. So I suppose he holds a unique position in that regard. There was a time when I identified with deism. I now see it for what it is. Deism denies God in practice but accepts Him in theory. Atheism denies God in both theory and in practice. While I think deism is certainly far more intelligent than atheism, it is, practically speaking, no different; so it's little wonder that deism gave way to atheism during the age of enlightenment. Spinoza is a deist's theologian. Since I left deistic thought a long time ago, I don't see much that speaks to me now in this kind of writing.
May 28, 2017
I have given this 4-star because of its importance in philosophical intellectual history, as well as its importance in the history of the body and emotions. Its legacy continues to weigh heavy on the world we live in. Even where I may disagree it is either through tense intellectual wrangling that creates knots in my own mind or through recourse to modern knowledge that Spinoza could not have had access to, as such it is a tour-de-force, so even on that score alone it is a work that is a pleasure to tangle with.
July 27, 2019
Life changing if you let it be.
March 27, 2025
Here, we read the essence of Bernard (originally Baruch) or even Benedictus' core take on being.
Paraphrasing (in part) Abraham Wolf, Spinoza doesn't see an all powerful being (which later Newton calls "a force") as a causal bit at the top of a thought chain: his entire system of reality is all at once present, and all around - Nature and God. In his tropes, he alternately states that God is Nature (deus sive natura) and its obverse, Nature is God (natura sive deus). His philosophy's "pantheism" is that all is God (the entire universe). However, the naturalistic edge is all "matter" without involving supernaturalism. Nature, hence, is not affected by inexplicable events or forces - except, perhaps, for God (as Newton would later prefer to call a force in itself). Or, vice versa (sive, this or that). God is not a being, in a word. Here we see the Judaic influence on his reasoning, most likely (there's no personal God) common to Christianity. The force could be either God or Nature or maybe both. In these ruminations, we later read Einstein's take on "chance" in the cosmos, and it reflects Bernard's naturalism: "God does not play dice." And although Spinoza rids us of supernaturalism (astrology, necromancy, etc.) there is a heavy dose of what we might describe as "supra-rationalism" the great apostate to the Jewish faith likes to point out, as if written backwards using a mirror. That is, the door is left open in our "understanding" to, in the cabalistic trials, a wider view due to God's revelation of "being" to us. Nothing is mysterious; nothing, random. It all has a purpose needing a mind (humans') capable of grasping essences that aren't God's or Natures - but could be ours. This, in fine, is the birth of modern science "using" metaphysics (cabalism to textual science study to obtain insight). His theism is of the purest variety in a cosmogonic enterprise encapsulating Descartes, Galileo, Kepler and especially, Boyle and Newton: that is, God is so vast, whatever we can interpret of "Him" ("Her?" Ha, ha, ha!) in Nature (or, vice sive versa) is ours and ours only, and until we can learn more of Him in order to obtain even more laws to surfeit our appetites and well being.
God is limitless. As such, potentially, so aren't we.
Paraphrasing (in part) Abraham Wolf, Spinoza doesn't see an all powerful being (which later Newton calls "a force") as a causal bit at the top of a thought chain: his entire system of reality is all at once present, and all around - Nature and God. In his tropes, he alternately states that God is Nature (deus sive natura) and its obverse, Nature is God (natura sive deus). His philosophy's "pantheism" is that all is God (the entire universe). However, the naturalistic edge is all "matter" without involving supernaturalism. Nature, hence, is not affected by inexplicable events or forces - except, perhaps, for God (as Newton would later prefer to call a force in itself). Or, vice versa (sive, this or that). God is not a being, in a word. Here we see the Judaic influence on his reasoning, most likely (there's no personal God) common to Christianity. The force could be either God or Nature or maybe both. In these ruminations, we later read Einstein's take on "chance" in the cosmos, and it reflects Bernard's naturalism: "God does not play dice." And although Spinoza rids us of supernaturalism (astrology, necromancy, etc.) there is a heavy dose of what we might describe as "supra-rationalism" the great apostate to the Jewish faith likes to point out, as if written backwards using a mirror. That is, the door is left open in our "understanding" to, in the cabalistic trials, a wider view due to God's revelation of "being" to us. Nothing is mysterious; nothing, random. It all has a purpose needing a mind (humans') capable of grasping essences that aren't God's or Natures - but could be ours. This, in fine, is the birth of modern science "using" metaphysics (cabalism to textual science study to obtain insight). His theism is of the purest variety in a cosmogonic enterprise encapsulating Descartes, Galileo, Kepler and especially, Boyle and Newton: that is, God is so vast, whatever we can interpret of "Him" ("Her?" Ha, ha, ha!) in Nature (or, vice sive versa) is ours and ours only, and until we can learn more of Him in order to obtain even more laws to surfeit our appetites and well being.
God is limitless. As such, potentially, so aren't we.
December 11, 2016
Ethics presents a monolithic metaphysical system, derived from axioms and definitions, possessing austere beauty and, it seems, great psychological insight. This is especially found in Spinoza's enumeration of the basic emotions and the elaborations of these, plus his solution to the problems they consistently cause to human beings.
Apart from that, Spinoza is enormously invested in an elaborate higher metaphysics, melding sublime notions of God, man, and nature. Upon that foundation, after a couple of hundred pages of seamless order, political philosophy is dealt with in one page only. (The result is frightening.)
At one point, by use of his relentless geometrical method, Spinoza derives the conclusion that it is perfectly fine for humans to cause serious suffering to animals. This seems to be because we are, in some curious Spinozistic fashion, special. If this is pure philosophical reasoning that makes the assumption that "all other things are equal"(and this is my sense), it is interesting. But perhaps all other things are *never* equal: there is no ceteris paribus. After witnessing the perfect movement from high-flown abstract principles to the justification of extreme cruelty to animals, I hope so. Spinoza doesn't hold back, but something goes wrong.
At a higher level, the notions of body and thought being just two of the limitless modes of what he refers to as "God", but the only two accessible to our understanding, is very engaging and evocative. Einstein said the God he believed in was the Spinozist God. The Ethics was a major influence on enlightenment philosophy and is a classic statement of the non-existence of free will. Maybe it's a book you should read if you really want to, and pass over without guilt if you don't. In any case I enjoyed it.
Apart from that, Spinoza is enormously invested in an elaborate higher metaphysics, melding sublime notions of God, man, and nature. Upon that foundation, after a couple of hundred pages of seamless order, political philosophy is dealt with in one page only. (The result is frightening.)
At one point, by use of his relentless geometrical method, Spinoza derives the conclusion that it is perfectly fine for humans to cause serious suffering to animals. This seems to be because we are, in some curious Spinozistic fashion, special. If this is pure philosophical reasoning that makes the assumption that "all other things are equal"(and this is my sense), it is interesting. But perhaps all other things are *never* equal: there is no ceteris paribus. After witnessing the perfect movement from high-flown abstract principles to the justification of extreme cruelty to animals, I hope so. Spinoza doesn't hold back, but something goes wrong.
At a higher level, the notions of body and thought being just two of the limitless modes of what he refers to as "God", but the only two accessible to our understanding, is very engaging and evocative. Einstein said the God he believed in was the Spinozist God. The Ethics was a major influence on enlightenment philosophy and is a classic statement of the non-existence of free will. Maybe it's a book you should read if you really want to, and pass over without guilt if you don't. In any case I enjoyed it.
April 29, 2021
This was a headache inducing read, just because almost every proposition refers to previous propositions, definitions and axioms, so just making sense of the paragraphs is a pretty intense memory test. One could, of course, go back to previous pages, make notes (perhaps using some kind of diagram for assistance), and make sense of it that way... and that's what I'd do if I was studying for a purpose, rather than just reading out of interest. As it is, I just wanted to pick up the book and follow the thought process, in the hope that it would offer some new angle/perspective/idea. I was able to scrounge some passing interest out of the complex network of argument, but that was about it. It seems a bit unfair to judge the book on its impenetrability, when it's clearly not intended for any kind of casual reading. Probably a lot more can be gotten out if it with a more dedicated reading... but I wouldn't know, and don't intend to find out any time soon.
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May 5, 2010American novelist and professor of philosophy Rebecca Newberger Goldstein has chosen to discuss Baruch Spinoza’s
Ethics
on FiveBooks as one of the top five on her subject - Reason and its Limitations, saying that:
“…He is of course one of the great 17-century rationalists, someone who made all the claims for reason that have ever been made. There is great ambiguity in him. He was called a God-intoxicated man by the poet Novalis. But he was also perhaps one of the most effective atheists of all time. …”
The full interview is available here: http://five-books.com/interviews/rebe...
“…He is of course one of the great 17-century rationalists, someone who made all the claims for reason that have ever been made. There is great ambiguity in him. He was called a God-intoxicated man by the poet Novalis. But he was also perhaps one of the most effective atheists of all time. …”
The full interview is available here: http://five-books.com/interviews/rebe...
August 20, 2007
A reasonable faith depends on "our willingness to disband the temporal certainties for the permanent possibilities." Spinoza's view from nowhere is a scientist's heaven. This book is now crammed into my nightstand collection, along with other sacred texts.
July 12, 2007
"That which is infinite cannot be divided." -Pure poetry.
January 28, 2025
bro got me spiraling
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews