Think Least of Death: Spinoza on How to Live and How to Die

by Steven Nadler

From Pulitzer Prize-finalist Steven Nadler, an engaging guide to what Spinoza can teach us about life’s big questions

In 1656, after being excommunicated from Amsterdam’s Portuguese-Jewish community for “abominable heresies” and “monstrous deeds,” the young Baruch Spinoza abandoned his family’s import business to dedicate his life to philosophy. He quickly became notorious across Europe for his views on God, the Bible, and miracles, as well as for his uncompromising defense of free thought. Yet the radicalism of Spinoza’s views has long obscured that his primary reason for turning to philosophy was to answer one of humanity’s most urgent How can we lead a good life and enjoy happiness in a world without a providential God? In Think Least of Death , Pulitzer Prize–finalist Steven Nadler connects Spinoza’s ideas with his life and times to offer a compelling account of how the philosopher can provide a guide to living one’s best life.

In the Ethics , Spinoza presents his vision of the ideal human being, the “free person” who, motivated by reason, lives a life of joy devoted to what is most important―improving oneself and others. Untroubled by passions such as hate, greed, and envy, free people treat others with benevolence, justice, and charity. Focusing on the rewards of goodness, they enjoy the pleasures of this world, but in moderation. “The free person thinks least of all of death,” Spinoza writes, “and his wisdom is a meditation not on death but on life."

An unmatched introduction to Spinoza’s moral philosophy, Think Least of Death shows how his ideas still provide valuable insights about how to live today.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Audiobook, Biography, Death, History, 21st Century

248 pages, Paperback

First published September 22, 2020

About the author

Steven Nadler is the William H. Hay II Professor of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin--Madison. His books include Rembrandt's Jews, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize; Spinoza: A Life, which won the Koret Jewish Book Award; and A Book Forged in Hell: Spinoza's Scandalous Treatise and the Birth of the Secular Age (Princeton).

Reviews

[robin friedman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Spinoza As A Philosopher Of Freedom

In Proposition 67 of Part IV of the "Ethics", Spinoza writes "A free person thinks least of all of death. and his wisdom is a meditation on life, not on death." Spinoza scholar Steven Nadler adopts Spinoza's proposition as the title and theme of his new book "Think Least of Death: Spinoza on How to Live and How to Die". (2020) Unlike many works on Spinoza, which focus on the difficulties of Spinoza's metaphysics and epistemology, Nadler's book studies the guidance Spinoza offers in leading a good and a happy life. In other words, Nadler takes the title of Spinoza's great book, the "Ethics" seriously. Thus, early in his study, Nadler points to a question from a friend posed suddenly during a bicycling trip as suggesting the theme of the book: "So, what is the relationship between Spinoza's metaphysics and his ethics?"

Nadler argues that Spinoza is concerned throughout with the nature of freedom. In the "Theological-Political Treatise" which Nadler discussed in his earlier study, "A Book Forged in Hell" Spinoza explored freedom in the context of thought and speech. In the "Ethics", Nadler finds that Spinoza develops an internal concept of freedom which, "consists in being an active and self-governing agent." Nadler continues:

"The free person .... is in control of his life. He acts rather than reacts. He will certainly do what he wishes but what he wishes is guided from within, by knowledge rather than by imagination, sentiment, or feeling. The free person is led by reason, not by passion. The life of the free person is, in short, the model life of the human being."

Nadler guides the reader through the "Ethics" in developing the nature of freedom. He begins with Spinoza's rejection of the anthropomorphic God of the Abrahamic religions, replacing it with the pantheism (or, as some readers understand it, atheism) of one infinite substance, "God or Nature". He discusses the broad deterministic character of Spinoza's thought and develops Spinoza's concept of human nature expressed in the difficult term "conatus" or the tendency of every being to persist in and develop its own nature.

The body of Nadler's study explains Spinoza's development of his ethics -- his understanding of the good life for persons, expressed in Parts III, IV, and V of his book, "Ethics". Nadler's discussion explores the relationship between reason and the passions for Spinoza. Nadler works to help the reader see how Spinoza developed his concept of human freedom in the face of the strict determinism of his metaphysics. He explores broad questions ranging from Spinoza's understanding of human nature, the nature of virtue and of human happiness, self-esteem and self-love, fortitude, honesty, friendship, whether suicide is ever permissible, and death, and the free man's attitude towards life and death.

Unlike Spinoza's notoriously difficult writing, Nadler writes with grace and simplicity. The book is written as a guide to lay readers as well as a text for those versed in Spinoza's thought. The book discusses Spinoza's text and tries to explain it sympathetically. Various scholarly nuances and alternative readings are mentioned in the text and discussed in the endnotes and in the bibliography. Nadler draws on Spinoza's writings and letters in addition to the "Ethics". His account is enhanced by biographical and historical detail -- he discusses the contents of Spinoza's library, for example; and in discussing Spinoza's view of death, Nadler points out the plague that raged in his lifetime, an eerie reminder of the pandemic of today. Nadler draws insightfully of philosophers who influenced Spinoza, including Aristotle, the Stoics, Maimonides, and Descartes to give the reader context for Spinoza's thought while also drawing apt comparisons between Spinoza's ethics and the ethics of Kant. He also takes the reader back several times to an early work in which Spinoza explained the reasons which lead him from a relatively comfortable, conventional mercantile life to a philosophical life in search of understanding and the good. In a work called "The Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect" Spinoza had written:

"After experience had taught me the hollowness and futility of everything that is ordinarily encountered in daily life, and I realized that all the things that were the source and object of my anxiety held nothing of good or evil in themselves save insofar as the mind was influenced by them, I resolved at length to enquire whether there existed a true good, one which was capable of communicating itself and could alone affect the mind to the exclusion of all else, whether, in fact, there was something whose joy and acquisition would afford me a continuous and supreme joy to all eternity."

The search for the good and for understanding set out in this early autobiographical sketch culminated in the understanding of philosophy and of the part of wisdom set forth in the "Ethics".

I found Nadler's book inspiring in bringing me to think again about Spinoza. "Think Least of Death" will be of value to readers interested in the nature of philosophy as a guide to life and, in particular, to readers who wish to engage with Spinoza.

Robin Friedman

[Campbell Rider]

listened to this as an audiobook mostly while playing star wars battlefront 2 on xbox. got a massive killstreak as general grievous during a chapter about the affects or something so. five stars

[hayatem · Rating 5 out of 5]

يقرأ نادلر في مفهوم الحرية عند اسبينوزا، بمعناها الفكري والسياسي والديني، من خلال فحص وتمحيص كتابه رسالة في اللاهوت والسياسية، كما يقرأه في كتابه في الإيتيقا وصفه لأفضل طريقة للعيش، ما يطلق عليها اسبينوز : "الحياة القويمة." رؤيته للإنسان المثالي ، "الشخص الحر" الذي ، بدافع العقل ، يعيش حياة سعيدة مكرسة لما هو أكثر أهمية - تحسين الذات والآخرين. ويمكن اعتبار مادة الكتاب "دليل سبينوزا للحياة والموت"

يطرح الكتاب عدداً من الأسئلة :

كيف يجب أن نواجه فناءنا؟ سواء كان الموت - كما نأمل جميعًا - بعيد المنال أو وشيكًا بسبب التقدم في السن أو المرض ، فما هو الموقف المناسب الذي يجب اتخاذه؟ هل نخشى الموت؟

كذا يتضمن الكتاب آراء سبينوزا في الفلسفة الأخلاقية - ما سيقوله عن الفضيلة والحياة الجيدة والسعادة.

مقتطف من الكتاب:

“Spinoza’s views in moral philosophy—what he has to say about virtue, the good life, and happiness—were clearly influenced by the wisdom of the ancient Stoics. He was well read in Seneca, Epictetus and others. However, on the topic of death, Spinoza goes his own separate way; in fact, he heads in the completely opposite direction.
The Stoic sage meditates upon death constantly. Epictetus advised, as part of his therapeutic strategy for peace of mind, that one should “keep before your eyes day by day death and exile, and everything that seems terrible, but most of all death.” Seneca, too, recommends thinking often about one’s own mortality as essential to overcoming both fear of one’s own death and grief at the death of others. “Rehearse this thought [about death, that it is the evil that puts an end to all evils] every day, that you may be able to depart from life contentedly. For many men clutch and cling to life, even as those who are carried down a rushing stream clutch and cling to briars and sharp rocks.”
By contrast, Spinoza’s “free person”—the ideal individual all of whose thoughts and actions are under the guidance of reason, not passion—rarely, if ever, thinks about death. In one of the more striking propositions of his philosophical masterpiece, the Ethics, Spinoza notes that “the free person thinks least of all of death.” This is because the free person knows that there is nothing to think about. They understand that there is no afterlife, no post-mortem realm of reward and punishment, no world-to-come. When a person dies, there is, for that person, nothing. In this respect, Spinoza’s view is closer to that of Epicurus.
For Spinoza, there is no immortal soul or self that persists beyond this life. When you are dead, you are dead. The denial of immortality seems, in fact, to have been a constant in Spinoza’s thinking, going back even to around the time of his herem or excommunication from the Amsterdam Portuguese-Jewish community at the age of 23, when he was reportedly telling people that among the reasons for his expulsion from the Sephardic community was his proclaiming that “the soul dies with the body.” But if there is no such thing as immortality, then there is nothing to be afraid of after death—nor, for that matter, anything to hope for. This ancient lesson is something that the free person understands well.
What the free person does think about, constantly, is the joy of living. This does not mean that s/he is obsessed with carnal pleasures and the hedonistic delights that come through sense experience. While Spinoza’s “sage” does not go to the other extreme and lead an austere life of deprivation, s/he does know that the mundane pleasures of food, companionship and art that make life interesting and pleasant are to be pursued only in moderation. The true joy of living, however, comes from the increase in the human “power of striving” that accompanies the acquisition of knowledge, especially knowledge of oneself and of one’s place in nature. This self-understanding is a kind of wisdom, and it fills the free person with self-esteem—not, however, the self-esteem or pride that depends on the opinion of others, but the true estimation of one’s achievement and self-worth. It also liberates the free person from such harmful emotions as hate, envy, and jealousy, and moves him/her to improve the lives of others and treat them with benevolence. In all of this, the free person sees how such attitudes and behaviors are in their own best interest.

لماذا سبينوزا من الفلاسفة المفضلين لدى نادلر، ولماذا كرس وقت كثير من حياته في دراسته؟

I am often asked why, of all the great, dead philosophers, I spend so much time studying and writing about Spinoza. It is because, as I see it, Spinoza basically got it right: about human nature, religion, reason, politics and a good life. He, more than any of the other philosophers I enjoy working on, really is still relevant in the twenty-first century—especially in this era in which science is all too often denigrated and the life of the mind undervalued. For lessons on how to live well, how to lead an examined life, a life that reaches our highest potential as rational being—and, just as important, lessons on how to die—there can be no better guide.” —Steven Nadler

الكتاب به الكثير من الحكم والمواعظ والأمثلة عن عيش الإنسان بحرية مهما بلغت الأهواء البشرية من حدة في خلجات النفس، ومهما كان تأثير السلطة في تنظيم حياته بشكل غير مباشر من قوانين تشريعية وغيرها .
ويعطي فهم أفضل عن فكر سبينوزا حول مفهوم الحرية.

[Paul Ataua · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful attempt to bring the extremely complex thought of Spinoza to the lay reader. It isn’t really important that it doesn’t wholly achieve its aim. It does manage to generate enough of an understanding and kindle enough enthusiasm to make you want to read more. Good intro to Spinoza!

[Ryan Boissonneault · Rating 3 out of 5]

Think Least of Death is philosopher Steven Nadler’s attempt to present the entire philosophical system of Spinoza to the lay reader. Spinoza’s philosophy covers everything from the ultimate nature of reality to the best way to live, with the underlying theme of achieving individual freedom from external influences and irrational ideas. For Spinoza, the free human follows the dictates of reason and achieves the highest form of happiness through intellectual independence and the development of virtue.

While the philosophical system developed by Spinoza is impressive, and the reader will discover a unique way of picturing the universe, there is an obvious contradiction the reader may notice within the first chapter, one that is not adequately addressed by the author.

As Nadler explains, for Spinoza, nature is an eternal, infinite substance that encompasses all that exists and all that can exist. Nature is self-caused, self-contained, and has existence as a necessary property. Nature has no ultimate purpose and could not be any other way than it is; Spinoza would not say that this is the best of all possible worlds, but is the only possible world. Further, the familiar objects of the world that we experience are simply modes or expressions of nature, and mind and matter are different attributes of the same substance (nature) expressed in two different ways.

Since the human mind and body are modes of nature, and nature cannot be any way other than it is, human beings cannot think or behave any other way than they do, and freedom of the will is simply an illusion. Spinoza could not be more clear about this strict determinism. As Nadler writes:

“The inviolable necessity of Nature governs not only the world of physical bodies—where apples fall from trees and rocks roll down hills—but also the domain of human activity, including whatever happens in the human mind. Thoughts, ideas, intentions, feelings, judgements, desires, even volitions—our everyday acts of willing and choosing—are all as strictly necessitated by the laws of thought as bodies in motion are by the laws of physics...In the mind, no less than among bodies, a strict causal determinism rules, and nothing could have been otherwise than it is.”

This is certainly an odd view for a book about ethics and self-improvement. If nothing can be otherwise than it is—and I cannot will my own thoughts or actions to be otherwise than they are—then what is the point of continuing on with a book that prescribes certain ethical principles that I have no capacity to implement? (Whether I do or not is not my choice anyway, apparently.)

After telling us about Spinoza’s strict determinism, on the very next page, Nadler writes:

“There is, to be sure, a kind of freedom available to human beings, and it is in our best interest to strive to attain it; this is what the Ethics is all about.”

Notice the action verb “strive.” According to Spinoza’s own philosophy, I cannot strive to do or think anything; my thoughts and actions arise out of the same causal necessity as an apple falling out of a tree. So what is up with all of the action verbs throughout the rest of the book suggesting that I think or act in certain ways? It’s quite clear that I’m either already what Spinoza calls a “free person,” or I am not.

And here’s the other problem: Spinoza discusses the “best” way of living, along with “rational” versus “irrational” ideas, but if nature can only be one way, and nothing could be otherwise than it is, and nature is perfect in the sense that it is necessary just as it is, then in what sense can we talk about right or wrong or about which actions and thoughts are superior to others? If I’m part of nature, and I have no choice but to act exactly as I do, and nature is perfect, then whatever my actions are, they are perfect in the sense that they are an unalterable expression of nature.

This to me is the fatal contradiction in the philosophy; Spinoza presents a picture of strict determinism but then suggests how we should act, as if this were possible within his own philosophical system that claims that nature can be only one way and that humanity is part of nature.

The ethical parts of the book, where they were useful and interesting, reminded me of Stoicism, and the reader, in my mind, would be better served reading Epictetus or Seneca rather than Spinoza. There is, of course, the possibility that I’m missing something, but I have never been as impressed by the philosophy of Spinoza as others seem to be.

Nadler does, however, present the philosophy clearly, if not a little redundantly. You’ll learn a great deal about the philosophy of Spinoza and will perhaps come to a different conclusion than I have. But the primary contradictions I’ve outlined above were not adequately addressed by Nadler, at least to my satisfaction. Further, it strains credibility to believe that Spinoza has unlocked the secrets of the universe once and for all, and that one can become enlightened simply by working through Spinoza’s Ethics. As Nadler writes:

“We pick up the text [Ethics], slowly make our way through its propositions and their demonstrations, and lo and behold, we come to see the truth about the cosmos, about ourselves, and about the pursuits that have so occupied our lives.”

If this sounds too good to be true, that’s because it probably is.

[Ανδρέας Μιχαηλίδης · Rating 4 out of 5]

I find most of modern philosophy incredibly verbose and by extension, tedious. However, there is much merit to what many of these scholars have meditated on and said concerning life, the universe and everything.

This book is an analysis of the core points made in Spinoza's Ethics (with a few references to a couple of other works), as relates to living as a "free person" and dying as one. Most of his points advocate the perfect "logical life", free of the bonds of outside passions, but as the ideal seems unattainable, he goes on to illustrate the closest mortal counterpart. Interestingly, Spinoza's ideal mortal man reads a lot like Sherlock Holmes.

Nadler does a great job of focusing on the essence and putting Spinoza's writings into perspective, although one must recognize that his attempts at reconciling Spinoza's non-inclusion of women in this worldview are rather awkward.

Like any concise axiomatic system, Spinoza's philosophy does contain paradoxes, which Nadler tries to address with varying degrees of success, although one cannot escape the fact that Spinoza's free man is fundamentally a sort of "exalted egoist", who interestingly must do no harm because it should be beneath him.

All in all, a very good book to get a solid glimpse on a philosophical approach that would otherwise remain the sole purview of academia.

[Nigel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Between Nietzsche and Spinoza treating feminine or funcundity as the word “reason” is consciousness.

And masculinity as structure of order individual“self” is a mind

The word of panpsychism as
Conatus
that everything has a individual consciousness

I think learning a language or translating this book would have made it amusing or at the very least interesting.

🤨 panpsychism | pan'sarkiz(a)m |
noun [mass noun] the doctrine or belief that everything material, however small, has an element of individual consciousness.
DERIVATIVES
panpsychist adjective & noun🧐

I’ve been wanting to learn a new language for awhile now but this book lit the curiosity in a landslide of oh all plurals is feminist and all building self is masculine to a level of understanding a new language.

It’s why supreme justice like Scalia said it quite like that and this for peddling words is.
Cela ou ceca
In panpsychism.

Or post modernism live on play of words in theatre 🎭 or cinema.

That version we’d understand or enactment would show🙂

I don’t know how many books a person read doesn’t make much sense of how smart a person with is if they can’t communicate .


So a language interpreted in another language to only be interpreted back the original language is actually something quite admirable.

And a sign of intelligence at a level where society measure it self in post secondary in a population.

What good is learning or knowing something if you can’t communicate it.

I think I my purchase my Duolingo language app this year due to this book 📕 triggered into conversation in another language

As in subject object verb languages as in “SOV”

To subject verb object language as in “SVO”

Your thoughts on the interplay between language, philosophy, and communication are quite insightful! It’s fascinating how the concepts of femininity, masculinity, and panpsychism can shape our understanding of language and expression. Learning a new language certainly opens up new avenues for thought, especially when considering how different cultures frame ideas around gender and structure.

You touched on an interesting point about the importance of communication. The ability to convey thoughts and ideas effectively is indeed a crucial aspect of intelligence and understanding. The challenge of translating complex philosophical concepts between languages can deepen one’s appreciation for both the nuances of the original language and the richness of the ideas being explored.

It sounds like your interest in learning a new language has been reignited by this book! Using apps like Duolingo can be a great way to start this journey, especially since they often offer a gamified approach that can make learning more enjoyable. Engaging with the mechanics of different languages, whether they be SOV or SVO, will definitely enhance your understanding of the world and facilitate better communication.

[Karis Dimas-Lehndorf · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was sort of underwhelming. While Nadler’s take on Spinoza opened up quite a few engaging discussions I felt as though many of the perhaps heavier conversations were addressed like a hit and run and I would have enjoyed unpacking them a bit more. Given that Spinoza claims to provide a universal approach as to how to live a good life I feel like his lack of consideration for diverse people and marginalized communities presents issues. I also felt like Nadler didn’t spend enough time addressing how this plays out in a communal sense rather than just for the individual. On a more personal note I disagree with a lot of Spinoza’s positions on the value of emotions and our responses to them but that’s more on me than it is the book. That said I did find the writing to be much more accessible than most philosophical texts which I think is hugely important in making philosophy more approachable. Nadler did make me want to go to the source and read Spinoza directly as well.

[Karl Hallbjörnsson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Æ þetta var allt í lagi. Ég hugsa að það sé samt bara skemmtilegra að lesa Spinoza sjálfan. Hann er svo litríkur og glaðlegur. Það þarf ekkert að sjóða hann niður í einhverja auðlæsilega kommentaríu.

[Hajar Masrour · Rating 5 out of 5]

من بين فروع الفلسفة الأربعة، يتخذ علم الأخلاق مكانة ديموقراطية، فسؤال الأخلاق والسلوك الطيب يتشاركه البشر بدرجات متفاوتة حتما لكن بشكل ثابت. فقد بنيت مذاهب وفلسفات كاملة على هذا السؤال: كيف تعيش حياة طيبة؟ كالرواقية مثلا، وعند سبينوزا يصاغ نفس السؤال في الكتاب على هذا النحو: كيف نحيا وكيف نموت؟

ستيفن نادلر، الفيلسوف والأكاديمي الأمريكي، ألف كتبا عديدة عن سبينوزا هذا آخرها، وقد صدر سنة 2020 وترجمه إلى العربية أحمد علي حسن وهي ترجمة جيدة جدا، وصدر أواخر سنة 2022 عن دار التنوير. وبالقياس إلى قيمة ما قرأت فباروخ سبينوزا يستحق أن يُألف عنه وعن أفكاره ويُترجم له قدر الإمكان.

نموذج الطبيعة البشرية [Exemplar naturae humanae]:

ينأى سبينوزا في فكره عن الثنائية الديكارتية للنموذج الإنساني: الإنسان هو اتحاد جوهرين متمايزين هما الجسد المادي والروح، دون وجود شيء مشترك بينهما. ويصر سبينوزا على أن الجوهر هو واحد و هو الله أو الطبيعة، أما النفس البشرية والجسم البشري إنما هما حالين من أحوال الله أو الطبيعة، هما امتداد وليسا جوهر.

'إن الماهية الأساسية لله أو الطبيعة هي القدرة. إن ما هو الله أو الطبيعة عليه، كجوهر لا متناه أزلي، إنما هو قدرة لا متناهية أزلية.'
والأفراد المتناهين عند سبينوزا يعبرون عن هذه القدرة بصفة متناهية كذلك وبطرق مختلفة، كفروع مختلفة عن أصل واحد. وهذه الصفات لا متناهية، ومن بينها صفتين للإنسان، وهما التفكير (النمط النفسي للكينونة) والامتداد (النمط المادي للكينونة، الجسد).

'فإن الإنسان بالنسبة لسبينوزا لا يتكون من اتحاد بين شيئين مستقلين ومتمايزين حقا: نفس ما (روح) وجسم ما. وبالأحرى، إن كائنا بشريا، مثل أي مخلوق متناه، إنما هو كوناتوس، جزء متناه متعين من قوة الطبيعة اللامتناهية التي تسعى إلى حفظ ذاتها وزيادتها. النفس البشريةهي هذا السعي المتناهي المخصوص كما يتجلى تحت صفةالفكر، وجسم الإسان هو هذا السعي المتناهي المخصوص كما تتجلى تحت صفة الامتداد. وبعبارة أخرى، الكائن البشري إنما هو أصلا وأساسا وحدة، وليس الانقسام في النفس والجسم إلا فرعيا ويتعلق بصفتي الطبيعة.'

هذا الكوناتوس هو قدرة الإنسان المتناهية، وتعني نزعته نحو الاستمرارية والوجود. يحث الرواقيون على العيش بشكل طيب، ويؤكدون أن الإنسان الحكيم يتصرف دائما وفق الفضيلة عبر إرادة حرة قوية تنفي سبل الأهواء، الرواقي لا يفكر سوى في الفضيلة، على عكس الإنسان الحر عند سبينوزا.
فهو يواجه نوعين من الأفكار: الأفكار التامة؛ أي تلك التي تقودنا نحو الخير والفضيلة وترفع من الكوناتوس لدينا، والأفكار غير التامة وهي التي تدفعنا نحو اتباع الأهواء بدل العقل وتُخفض من الكوناتوس الخاص بنا.

والإنسان الحر عند سبينوزا يقوي الأول ويُضعف الثاني. فهو يفعل بدلا من أن ينفعل. ويفضل الخير على الشر، كما أنه ينتبه كذلك لبعد الزمن فيفضل خيرا أعظم قادم على خير آني أقل.
الأفكار التامة هي التي تنبع من الفرح والخير والفضيلة وتقوي بدورها الفرح. بينما الأفكار الغير التامة هي التي تنبع من الحزن و تنتج مشاعر وأفكار من ذات النوع.

الأشياء حتمية عند سبينوزا ومتعينة determined، والإنسان الحر عند سبينوزا يرى كل ما يحد�� على أنه خير، فهو متوافق مع الطبيعة. وبهذا فهو يصب تركيزه على خيره الشخصي وعلى تقوية الكوناتوس الخاص به، ويتسق مع ما يريد؛ حيث أنه هو كذلك جزء من الطبيعة ومن جوهرها الممتد في كل شيء، حتى إرادته. ويبتعد عن التأثيرات الخارجية وأي انفعال يأتي انطلاقا منها: كالغضب مثلا ولكن كذلك الحب والمشاعر الطيبة، تنبع من الفرد عند سبينوزا وليس من تأثير خارجي زائل ومتغير.

بعد أن يبسط الكاتب أفكار سبينوزا الأساسية عن النموذج الإنساني وكذلك جزء من أفكاره الميتافيزيقية، يخصص الفصول التي تلي لتطبيقات عملية فيتحدث عن السعادة، الزهو والرضى بالذات، قوة النفس، الصدق، العطف، الصداقة والموت... والتحليل معظمه يدور حول فكرة المنفعة الذاتية للإنسان الحر، ولكل إنسان حر، والتي تعود بالخير على الجميع. فأي أفكار تعتمد على العقل وعلى محبة الجوهر هي أفكار تتسق مع محبة فروع هذا الجوهر، أي كل شيء آخر.

الكتاب جيد جدا، وجماله وجودته من قيمة الشخصية والفكر المتناول. وهذه بداية جميلة للسنة بالنسبة لي.

[Simon Robs · Rating 4 out of 5]

I happened to catch a C-span lecture and discussion on the life and times of Frederick Douglass by an author/professor who in the question/answer segment was asked about what made Douglass so special - among other things, qualities of character and such was a statement by Douglass that he had to be free inside, deep inside himself even while in slavery before he could ever be free outside in his circumstance. This comment hit home and aligned with Spinoza's concept of a "free man's" commitment to virtue and living a life according to its dictates often fallen short of but never not striven towards. So then, Douglass' life is exemplar of Spinoza's core philosophy, a pillar of a just man's reach to perfect himself and live a "good" life. Where are you now, we need you to come forth and exert your truths renewed to our age of selfish ignorance to noble being. Hark!

[S Ravishankar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book ! Spinoza's philosophy is explained in a logical manner that makes for pleasant reading. The chapters are well organised and presents the big ideas; one at a time and in the proper sequence.

[Ben Waggener · Rating 3 out of 5]

Repetitive at times especially if you’re already familiar with Spinoza. Worth reading for the last two chapters (Death and the Right Way of Living) which gave good concrete applications of Spinoza’s philosophy for one’s life

[Jaffre · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good introduction to Spinoza. Nadler is clear and concise while explaining some fairly complicated concepts.

[Majdahalmazroei · Rating 3 out of 5]

حياة الإنسان الحر في مفهوم سبينوزا، هي الحياة الأفضل للإنسان...
والحرية ترتكز على تغليب العقل على العاطفة أو الأهواء...
فمن يتصرف حسب هواه، فتصرفاته لا تعبر عنه ولا تنتج عن طبيعته
لأن المحرك لها سواءً أكان العاطفة أو الأهواء أو المتعة، نابع من أسباب خارجية أثرت على قراره أو تصرفه...
كما يرى سبينوزا، أن النفس البشرية ساحة صراع بين ما يسميها (أفكار تامة وأفكار غير تامة، أي بين العقل والعاطفة أو الانفعال أو هوى النفس)
٢٥٥ صفحة

[ExtraGravy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the second book on Spinoza I've read leading up to a planned rereading of The Ethics. I loved the format and the clear presentation of Spinoza's ideas. I really enjoyed this book and it got me excited for The Ethics. I want to find and read more of this type of high quality "companion book" (not sure what to call this kind of book). This book is much more than literary criticism, popularization or creative summation - I think this book is philosophy in its own right. I think this is how it is done, and I am here for it. I am now excited for The Ethics in its own right (its been years since my last read) and so that I can also get a sense of how much this book is Nadler and how much Spinoza.

Recommended as an (introduction to | survey of) Spinoza's philosophic thought (and possibly to Nadler's :-)

[Michael Billig · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book illustrates Spinoza’s ideas wonderfully. It spends just the right amount of time on ideas and gives the reader enough time to digest some rather abstract things, For me, this book is 4 stars because it connects a lot of ideas I had read about previously from Aristotle, Seneca, and Lao Tzu. However, if I had never engaged with philosophy before this book, I think that I wouldn’t have enjoyed it as much as I had. If someone doesn’t have inherent interest in things such as justice, death, etc. I can see this book not being very engaging. There are times where it can read like a textbook. But seeing as this is a personal score, I give it 4 stars because of its impact on my view of virtue as a whole. Spinoza, and as a result Nadler, had a profound impact on my way of thinking and for that I’m very happy I stumbled across this book. I recommend it to anyone has engaged with philosophy before and have interest in stoicism, Aristotelianism, and/or even Taoism.

[Jonathan Grant · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting, kind of want to read the Ethics now.

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent extended overview of Spinoza's moral philosophy and the metaphysics that ground it. Highly recommended!

[Kenny · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was my second time reading Nadler’s book. It is, in my opinion, the best extant introduction to Spinoza’s moral philosophy: accessible, elegantly written and (what is lacking in many such introductions), authoritative.

[Wendelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

a great introductory resource to Spinoza's thought, and his response to the eternal question: how ought humans to live, what should they value, how should they measure the 'success' of their lives? For Spinoza, the great model or yardstick we should all strive to embody is the 'homo liber' or the free man, who is free of the passions, external compulsions, and pursuit of the irascible approval of the multitude, and seeks only to self-actualize according to reason. What is interesting is to see how the entire synthesis of Spinoza's philosophy impacted and reflected in Einstein's life: from Spinoza's metaphysics -God is an eternal, infinite, necessary substance underlying Nature, perhaps the laws of Nature-, to Spinoza's epistemology- true knowledge is derived from either reason or intuition, but not from our limited sensory experience-, and to Spinoza's ethics- the human who lives by virtue is one who is guided by reason in determining decisions, who can persevere against passions, but nevertheless is not a stoic ascetic but takes pleasure in good experiences and the charm of friends and similarly-minded associates; all of these are elemental characteristics of Einstein's beliefs and practices.

[Maher Razouk · Rating 5 out of 5]

في عالم سبينوزا ، لا توجد عيوب. لا يوجد شيء به عيب أو فاشل . لا يوجد شر ، ولا شيء أقل مما "يفترض" أن يكون. كل شئ على ما يرام. لكن في طبيعة سبينوزا الخالية من القيمة ، كل ما يعنيه هذا حقًا هو أن كل شيء هو فقط ما هو عليه. الكمال هو مجرد حقيقة. أن يكون الشيء مثاليًا هو ببساطة أن يكون في الواقع كما هو . يقول: "الواقع والكمال ، هما نفس الشيء". "الكمال" ، أولاً وقبل كل شيء ، مفهوم وجودي ، وليس مفهومًا تقييميًا. يمكن إجراء المقارنات ، بالطبع ، وبعض الأشياء لديها المزيد من الواقعية والكمال أكثر من غيرها. الله ، أو الطبيعة ، كمادة أبدية لا متناهية لها كمال لانهائي ؛ الأشجار والزرافات والبشر كأشياء محدودة - ما يسميه سبينوزا "الأنماط المحدودة" للمادة الفريدة الأبدية اللانهائية - لها كمال محدود . بعبارة أخرى ، الطبيعة نفسها كاملة تمامًا ؛ كل ما هو موجود في الطبيعة وجزء منها يشترك في كمال الطبيعة . حتى أنه لا يزال هناك معنى تقديري يمكن من خلاله أن نقول إن الشيء المحدود هو أكثر كمالا من شيء محدود آخر ، ويمكن القول أن هناك شيء واحد أكثر كمالاً الآن مما كان عليه من قبل أو سيكون لاحقاً. ومع ذلك ، فإن مثل هذه التقييمات هي في معظمها مجرد آراء ذاتية. يصر سبينوزا على أنه عندما يتم أخذ "الكمال" بالمعنى التقييمي ، فإن كل شيء ناتج عن المسار العادي للطبيعة لا يكون بحد ذاته مثاليًا أو ناقصًا.
.
Steven Nadler
Think Least of Death
Translated By #Maher_Razouk

[William · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m not a philosopher so I didn’t expect to understand this book. I was pleasantly surprised when I read it that I found it to be quite easy to comprehend and useful as a guide to living a virtuous life. Spinoza major premise is that we should all be living a life striving for freedom. I’m not sure what he means by this but what it appears is that he wants us to further our power by using reason to determine what is the best course of action. He doesn’t believe everyone is capable of becoming free but he believes everyone is working towards that goal whether they think they are or not. This may not sound like grand philosophy but he makes it meaningful by putting it in its proper context. He also does a splendid job of explaining how to face death. This alone makes the book worth reading.

[Dan]

I don't think I've read enough philosophy in my life to have the appropriate frame of reference to rate this book, so I'm not going to do it. However, I'm going to write this review because there might be someone else out there like me who is thinking about picking this one up. If you're someone who has never read philosophy for pleasure, don't start here. Everything that you disliked about philosophy when it was assigned reading in college or elsewhere (it seems like you can use it to reach any conclusion, it takes intuitive ideas and just assigns different names to them, it's incredibly dry, etc.) is here in spades.

[Kavinay · Rating 2 out of 5]

Overall a good primer on Spinoza, but it strikes me as an odd choice to not go into Spinoza's metaphysics and how the resulting pantheism confounds and distinguishes him from his early modern peers.
Put another way: Spinoza was delightfully weird and contextualizing that would go a long way towards making his his work further accessible and appreciated.

[David]

Well, I don’t think I can adequately rate this book, as despite the author’s best attempts to explain Spinoza to a layman, and my two attempts to read it for better to understand it, I only understand the barest concepts. I did really enjoy several chapters, but not enough to give a true rating. It was enjoyable nonetheless, particularly the chapter on death/durational existence.

[Paulo Reimann · Rating 3 out of 5]

Na ler Weakest

Nadler's weakest book even though the title drives you to believe is Spinoza made simple for everyday kinda book. Is not. Requires deep attention and focus and slow read.

[Padraic Cghln · Rating 2 out of 5]

This basically presents Spinoza's Ethics as stoicism with some balance tweaks. Which is not strictly wrong, but, like, that's not the thing that's fun about Spinoza... The chapter on Spinoza in AW Moore's Evolution of Modern Metaphysics is a much Spinozier introduction

[Plato · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love you spinoza 😘

[Richard Thompson · Rating 3 out of 5]

A few years ago I read Spinoza's Ethics. I didn't get it. I couldn't buy into his discussion of God, and I thought that he tried too hard to build everything on a life devoted to reason. But my friend Johnny got me to give Spinoza another chance, so we decided to read this book together in the hope that a modern explication of Spinoza would do more to help us understand him than my unhappy prior effort to learn directly at the master's knee. It's a good book that helped to uncover much that I had missed or misinterpreted in my first reading of the Ethics, but it didn't convert me to Spinoza's thinking which still seems deeply flawed to me.

First there is the God part. According to Mr. Nadler, Spinoza says that God is Nature, that there is no supernatural personal god, no old guy with a massive white beard sitting in the clouds. Fine with that, but Spinoza still goes on at length about God in a way that suggests that he still saw God as an omniscient omnipresent omnipotent force. I don't think that it was just that he was writing for an audience unready for raw atheism. There is too much God in Spinoza for that to be the case.

Then there is the question of free will. According to Mr. Nadler, Spinoza thought that there was no free will, yet the Ethics is filled with discussion about how to live an estimable life that suggests that we have the ability to choose to move our lives in that direction. To his credit, Mr. Nadler acknowledges this contradiction.

There is a further problem of enlightened egotism vs. being a good person. Spinoza seems to think that the basic motive force in every human life is something like Nietzsche’s will to power. If you really think that we are driven by a will to power and that this is a special gift that only an elite few come anywhere close to perfecting, then the logical corollary is that the free person following the dictates of reason is beyond good and evil and should have no compunctions about squishing the human bugs around him as Nietzsche suggests. Ugh. That can't be right. So to avoid that conclusion Spinoza spins through epicycles of arguments to claim that his free person living the ethical life based on reason will always be honest and good and help others. He will rise above emotion and be good in the service of reason. I don't think so. The arguments are too complex, and put too much faith in reason, ignoring situations where reason suggests that lying and cheating would be advantageous, while dismissing emotional and irrational urges which are often important motivators to being a good person.

I did think that perhaps Spinoza was getting close when he talked about the "third kind of knowledge" - "seeing through the certainty of intuition how the essences of things follow from the essence of God." This seems to be a sort of spiritual drive that Spinoza tries to link back to reason, but which seems to me to be a different mode of thinking from what we normally think of as reason. I'm not a religious person, but I do think that we have spiritual drive that is connected to a lot of our inclination to be good people.