Spinoza: A Very Short Introduction

Very Short Introductions #070

by Roger Scruton

Father of the Enlightenment and the last guardian of the medieval world, Spinoza made a brilliant attempt to reconcile the conflicting moral and intellectual demands of his epoch and to present a vision of man as simultaneously bound by necessity and eternally free. Ostracized by the Jewish community in Amsterddam to which he was born, Spinoza developed a political philosophy that set out to justify the secular state ruled by a liberal constitution, and a metaphysics that sought to reconcile human freedom with a belief in scientific explanation. Here, Roger Scruton presents a clear and systematic analysis of Spinoza's thought and shows its relevance to today's intellectual preoccupations.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Biography, History, Religion, Jewish, Politics

144 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1986

About the author

Sir Roger Scruton was a writer and philosopher who has published more than forty books in philosophy, aesthetics and politics. He was a fellow of the British Academy and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He taught in both England and America and was a Visiting Professor at Department of Philosophy and Fellow of Blackfriars Hall, Oxford, he was also a Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, Washington D.C.

In 2015 he published two books, The Disappeared and later in the autumn, Fools Frauds and Firebrands. Fools Frauds and Firebrands is an update of Thinkers of the New Left published, to widespread outrage, in 1986. It includes new chapters covering Lacan, Deleuze and Badiou and some timely thoughts about the historians and social thinkers who led British intellectuals up the garden path during the last decades, including Eric Hobsbawm and Ralph Miliband.

In 2016 he again published two books, Confessions of A Heretic (a collection of essays) and The Ring of Truth, about Wagner’s Ring cycle, which was widely and favourably reviewed. In 2017 he published On Human Nature (Princeton University Press), which was again widely reviewed, and contains a distillation of his philosophy. He also published a response to Brexit, Where We Are (Bloomsbury).

Reviews

[فؤاد · Rating 3 out of 5]

اسپینوزا در یک دقیقه و سی ثانیه
اسپینوزا یکی از فیلسوفان عقل گراست، یعنی:
اولاً، معتقد است می شود جهان را فارغ از دیدگاه های شخصی شناخت.
ثانیاً، برای این شناخت بی طرفانه باید از استدلال های دقیق و خشک عقلی استفاده کرد.

شناخت عقلی اسپینوزا از جهان، در دو جمله (اولی فلسفی، و دومی اخلاقی) خلاصه می شود:

١. ما هيچ كاره ايم

تمام جهان یک جوهر واحد است، که می توان آن را "خدا" یا "طبیعت" نامید.

باقی موجوداتی که می بینیم، در حقیقت موجودات مستقلی نیستند، بلکه صرفاً صفات آن جوهر واحد هستند. مانند چین خوردگی یک پارچه، که موجودیتی جدای از پارچه ندارد، بلکه تنها حالتی از پارچه است. به همین ترتیب، میز، درخت، اتومبیل و حتی خود ما، موجودیتی از خود نداریم، بلکه حالات و صفات موجودی نامتناهی به نام "خدا" یا "طبیعت" هستیم.

در نتیجه، ما در هیچ چیز استقلالی از خود نداریم. همان طور که چین خوردگی آستین لباس من نمی تواند به دلخواه خود به این سو و آن سو حرکت کند، خود من نیز نمی توانم در خواست ها و کنش ها و احساس های خود، از خود اراده ای داشته باشم.


٢. براى گريز از رنج هاى زندگى، بايد بفهميم كه هيچ كاره ايم

حال كه ما در احساسات و کنش های خود و در اتفاقاتى كه برایمان مى افتد هيچ استقلالى نداريم و تنها توهمّی از استقلال داريم، تنها راه براى رسيدن به رضايت در زندگى، اين است كه از اين توهّم بیرون بیاییم، و برای بیرون آمدن از توهّم باید تلاش کنیم وقایع جهان را نه از دیدگاه محدود و شخصی خود، بلکه از دیدگاه بی طرف عینی ببینیم.

سنگى كه به آسمان پرتاب می شود اگر به اشتباه فكر كند كه حرکاتش به دست خودش است، بيهوده تلاش خواهد كرد كه جلوى سقوطش را بگیرد، و طبيعی است كه شكست مى خورد، ولى چون فكر مى كند می توانسته سرنوشتى غير از اين برای خود رقم بزند، رنج مى كشد. عامل رنج و اندوه همين توهّم و تصور اشتباه است.

[Riku Sayuj · Rating 4 out of 5]

A decent overview is provided here by Scruton. Gives the basic outline quite succinctly, but spends a bit too much time on critique and showing us the weaknesses in the arguments. One could argue that in a VSI the 'as-is' could be given, with pointers to further reading as far as critiques are concerned. However, it is an easily readable work on Spinoza -and that is saying something.

Scruton seems to leave us with a very stylized picture of Spinoza's philosophy - a system where nothing exists save the one substance – the self-contained, self-sustaining, and self-explanatory system which constitutes the world - understood in many ways: as God or Nature; as mind or matter; as creator or created; as eternal or temporal. It can be known adequately and clearly through its attributes (via reason), but only partially and confusedly through its modes.

To understand this one substance properly, with full use of our illumined reason, under the aspect of eternity, is also to know that everything in the world exists by necessity, and that it could not be other than it is.

What about individuals and our identities? Our separateness, and identity, seem to be denied by Spinoza, and man, as part of nature, seems to be no more important a feature in the scheme of things than are rocks and stones and trees.

Finally, the assertion that everything happens by necessity seems to leave the whole of morality in doubt. It is unclear whether the question ‘What shall I do?’ has any meaning for Spinoza. For not only does the ‘I’ seem to be problematic – a fleeting mode of God with neither individuality nor self-dependence — the whole suggestion that such a thing might actually do something is without meaning, since in nothing does it have the slightest choice.

In the face of the existent "I", Spinoza still had to find a place for ethics - Scruton shows this to us by showing us how the metaphysics of Spinoza works once it is in touch with the world we inhabit.

The free man is the one conscious of the necessities that compel him.

This Sartre-like impasse then leads us in very Hobbesian, Hegelian and Marxian directions as we discuss Politics, organization of state, role of freedom and liberty, etc. - to me this was more interesting than the metaphysics, but it was plain that understanding the metaphysics and how such down-to-earth and reasonable arguments about everyday organization can be derived from a metaphysics that seems to be completely out of touch with reality would be a intellectual spectacle worth witnessing.

[W.D. Clarke · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite thorough, and not as heavy-going as it could have been, and presented from a mostly dispassionate perspective (if not quite a [Spinozan!] sub specie aeternitatis —the author actually namecalls both Marx and Nietzsche "false prophets" for some un-argued reason right in the closing pages). And, from the passages quoted herein, essential if you are going to dip your toes into the vast depths of his primary texts, I think.

Three stars not cos it wasn't professionally done, but just because I am already stretching the truth (all that matters for a Spinozist!) pretty far by saying "I liked it". It was, hand on heart, perfectly fine for what it was trying to do.

[Katia N · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Very short introduction indeed, but masterfully written. I thoroughly enjoyed Scruton's way of explaining Spinoza's philosophy. And I was very happy that I understood his metaphysics on a very high level of course. Scruton also includes very useful and quite lengthy quotes from the "Ethics", but in really good English translation. There is a conclusion chapter where Scruton goes a bit too much into his own ideas, but it is not too controversial I would say. Great philosopher and great introduction.

[Argos · Rating 4 out of 5]

17. yüzyılın gerçekçi filozofu Spinoza’yı tanımak için iyi bir kitap. Hayatı ile başlıyor, tanrı, insan özgürürlüğü, devlet gibi konularda ilginç düşünceleriyle devam ediyor. Bazı tezlerin kritiği aşırı ayrıntıya kaçılarak yazıldığından okumada güçlük çekilebiliyor. Ortaçağ karanlığında Spinoza’nın düşünceleri cesur ama biraz politik, özellikle tanrı konusunda.

[Anthony Buckley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a lucid and elegant critical introduction to Spinoza. Spinoza believed there was only one substance, God, and that more specific objects were modifications or “modes” of that one substance. As well as existing in different modes, God has an infinite number of attributes of which two are identified - extension (or reality) and thought (or conception).
Spinoza is a rationalist, in that his conclusions are derived by rational argument from a revised version of Descartes’ philosophy. They also rely heavily upon arguments drawn from St Anselm’s ontological proof of God’s existence. In his most important book, the Ethics, the progress of these ideas is set out in the manner of Euclid’s geometrical theorems arguing from elementary axioms and definitions.
According to Scruton, the hidden assumption of Spinoza's philosophy is that, when ideas are sufficiently “adequate”, then reality and conception coincide, so that relations between ideas correspond exactly to relations in reality. Scruton complains that much of Spinoza hangs on the somewhat sneaky idea that human beings’ ideas are true “in so far as” they coincide with those that are attributes of God. More than this, man’s salvation consists in seeing the world with the timeless eyes of God rather than with they eyes of time-ridden ordinary existence. However, says Scruton, there is no guarantee that the ideas of God and of man will ever coincide in the manner Spinoza suggest..

A weakness in Spinoza, says Scruton, is his tendency to diminish the role of the individual human subject which Descartes’ thought had taken as central. Spinoza notes that organisms (and certain other objects) resist damage, fracture or melting. Sometimes, if injured, they restore themselves out of their own inherent principle of self-recovery. This endeavour, (conatus) constitutes their essence. Scruton, however, denies that this account of the individual is sufficient.
Despite the centrality of “God“in Spinoza’s thought, it is clear that his theology is quite different from that of popular religion. Spinoza’s “God-intoxicated pantheism” denies most of what is found in traditional Judaism and Christianity. Not least, it overturns the notion of a personal God. What Spinoza calls “God” could as easily called by Newton’s term “matter” or by Einstein’s term “energy”. Indeed, in today’s world, Spinoza’s “God” could be redefined as the “stardust” from which “big-bang theory” suggests we are all made. As with other 17th century thinkers, Spinoza therefore carves an unstated, but clear path towards modern atheism.

I found the connection with Hegel particularly interesting. Scruton says that Hegel appropriated and transformed the major arguments of the Ethics. The theory of the one substance thus becomes that of the Absolute Idea, the single entity which is realized in and through the attributes of nature, spirit, art and history. The theory of adequate ideas becomes the dialectic, according to which knowledge is a progressive advance from a confused and "abstract" "positing" of a concept, to the ever completer, ever more "absolute" conception of the world. The theory of conatus becomes that of "self-realization" through the successive "objectifications" of the spirit. The theory of political order becomes that of the state as the realization of freedom, and the march of reason in the world. Hegel therefore combines these Spinozist conceptions with the idea which (according to Scruton) they deny - the idea of the self, as the historically determined, limited and partial viewpoint upon the world, whose process of self-realization is also the actuality and the meaning of all that there is. Hegel himself sums up the transformation thus: "As against Spinoza, again, it is to be noted that the mind in the judgement by which it "constitutes" itself an "ego" (a free subject - - -) has emerged from substance, and that the philosophy which gives this judgement as the absolute characteristic of mind has emerged from Spinozism."

Spinoza, therefore, points towards the Hegelian and scientific thinking of a much later time but using tools provided by St Anselm and Euclid. The system Scruton outlines is at times difficult and obscure: He writes that the reader will feel he grasps the whole system in its clarity, but “like the towers of Valhalla, the vision comes only with the gathering of darkness, and is no sooner granted than at once extinguished by the night." In Scruton’s able hands, however, the system is not nearly as obscure as he seems to suggest.

[Julian Worker · Rating 2 out of 5]

Normally, I like this series of books, but in the case of Spinoza I have to give only two stars out of five.

I'm not sure if that's down to Spinoza or the author.

The only ideas that I understand are:

Men are mistaken in thinking themselves free, and this opinion consists in this alone, that they are conscious of their actions and ignorant of the causes whereby they are determined. (Ethics 2,35)

The idea of liberty is an error of imagination and provides neither guidance nor happiness to the person who is enslaved by it. The more we understand, the more we are convinced of the unreality of temporal freedom and the more do we see the truth that:

There is no mind absolute or free will, but the mind is determined to will this or that by a cause which is determined by another cause and this one again by another, and so on ad infinitum. (Ethics 2, 46)

Such infinite chains of causal necessity are simply the reflection, under the aspect of time, of that which, seen under the aspect of eternity, is the eternal and immutable will of God.

The illusion that we can be free in time gives way to the certainty that we can be free from time. This real and higher freedom Spinoza goes on to recommend.

[Catherine Vamianaki · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is an excellent introduction to Spinoza's philosophy. There were times I had hard time reading few parts and had to read again. Still, an enjoyable little book but it was worthwhile read. I intend to read Ethics one day.

[John · Rating 1 out of 5]

Thinking this book might be akin to "Spinoza for Dummies", I was hoping that it would provide me with a better understanding of Spinoza's philosphy. I have a basic knowledge of The Netherlands during this period and its relative religious tolerance. However, after reading about half of the book, I put it down because most of it was going over my head. I followed the early chapters Spinoza's life and times and quickly read the last couple of chapters but failed to grasp the more philosophical points discussed in the middle. These comments may reflect more on my intellectual limitations than on the author's ability to explain Spinoza to a lay person. Perhaps someone with a stronger background in philosophy would get more out of the book than I did.

[Gijs Limonard · Rating 5 out of 5]

4,5 stars; leave it to Roger Scruton to lay out Spinoza's philosophy in a clear and concise volume; thoroughly enjoyed it, highly recommended. On Spinoza's life and thought in more detail, be sure to check out Steven Nadler and his A Book Forged in Hell: Spinoza's Scandalous Treatise and the Birth of the Secular Age.

"It is easy to understand why Spinoza was regarded as such a dangerous heretic. He offered to prove the existence and grandeur of God. But the small print tells us that God is identical with Nature, and that nothing in the world is free. For the bewildered believer, anxious for a philosophy with which to counter modern science, this is the ultimate sell-out. The inexorable machine of nature is all that there is, and we are helplessly enslaved to it. And the fact that nature is ‘cause of itself’ – that is, the fact that it exists of necessity and could not be other than it is – only adds to the disaster."

"Now it is in the nature of reason to see the world sub specie aeternitatis – that is, without reference to time. Reason therefore makes no distinction between past, present and future, and is as much and as little affected by present things as by things in the future or the past (Part 4, Proposition 62.) Only if we see the world sub specie durationis are we tempted to lose ourselves in the pursuit of present temptation."

"The one who lives by the dictates of reason is the ‘free man’ – the person who is active rather than passive in all that involves him. The illusory idea of free will stems from inadequate and confused perceptions; rightly understood, however, freedom is not the release from necessity but the consciousness of necessity that comes when we see the world sub specie aeternitatis and ourselves as bound by its immutable laws. The free man, in Spinoza’s encomium, is a lofty but cheerful character, with no traces of Calvinist gloom. He ‘thinks of nothing less than of death, and his wisdom is a meditation on life, not on death’ (Part 4, Proposition 67)."

"Spinoza, like Pascal, saw that the new science must inevitably ‘disenchant’ the world. By following truth as our standard, we chase from their ancient abodes the miraculous, the sacred and the saintly. The danger, however, is not that we follow this standard – for we have no other – but that we follow it only so far as to lose our faith, and not so far as to regain it. We rid the world of useful superstitions, without seeing it as a whole. Oppressed by its meaninglessness, we succumb then to new and less useful illusions – superstitions born of disenchantment, which are all the more dangerous for taking man, rather than God, as their object. The remedy, Spinoza reminds us, is not to retreat into the pre-scientific world-view, but to go further along the path of disenchantment; losing both the old superstitions and the new, we discover at last a meaning in truth itself. By the very thinking that disenchants the world we come to a new enchantment, recognizing God in everything, and loving his works in the very act of knowing them."

[Mohammad Mirzaali · Rating 3 out of 5]

اسپینوزا فیلسوف دیریابی ست —و به همین میزان برای درک فیلسوفان پس از خودش، به خصوص هگل، ضروری. اسکروتن در این کتاب مختصر سعی کرده تا نظام فلسفی اسپینوزا را در موارد «خدا»، «انسان»، «آزادی» و «دولت» با وضوح معرفی کند

[Kenny · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is an impressively bad introduction to Spinoza’s philosophy. Just about everything interesting and of substance is barely glossed over. What’s more, Scruton repeatedly makes simple factual errors about Spinoza. How is anyone supposed to take seriously a book which can’t even get right how many adult siblings Spinoza had when that book is apparently about him?

Scruton’s critical appraisal continually returns to this idea that Spinoza has merely assumed that the world is as our adequate ideas represent it. He therefore misses that Spinoza actually argues for this, explicitly. That is likely in the service of Scruton’s heavy-handed conservatism that he cannot help but wield inelegantly against Spinoza’s political theory and the political ideas of his inheritors.

The book opens with an apology by Scruton for his lack of expertise and his shallow depth of understanding. If only his other books included a similar statement.

[Clif · Rating 5 out of 5]

Philosophy, more often than not and unfortunately, needs translation for the layman. Philosophers tend to come up with their own definitions of common words that we use differently or they invent neologisms. This can confuse the reader leading him or her to stop reading in frustration.

I've found Oxford University's "Very Short Introduction" series does a good job with this translation and Roger Scruton does an exceptional job in this look at the work of Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677). Even with good "translation", mental work is involved and must be expected in reading philosophy.

What was Spinoza up to? For all the information science gives us we are still left with the questions of how we should live and what meaning to give the world around us. Science does not provide meaning, only facts that we must evaluate. The search for meaning isn't new. The age-old method of addressing it has been to come up with a mythology. This or that religion has answered doubts definitively, making individual behavior a matter of following holy revelation in order to live a good life and, with some religions, to offer eternal life. People have flocked to religions a sure sign of a need being addressed. Spinoza wanted what he called true religion: the intellectual love of God.

At the time in which Spinoza lived, the Western world was stimulated by new discoveries geographic and scientific. There was a fascination with reason and the clear logic of mathematics renewed from the classical age of Greece. Spinoza, a proponent of what Descartes had called "clear and distinct" ideas, believed such thinking was truth not needing any material proof. He believed a system of ethics could be worked out as concisely as Euclid had done with geometry.

Spinoza thought that God was all. Because God is perfect and non-existence is an imperfection, God has to exist. He reasoned that the world of thought and the world of things are two different attributes of God, two equally valid manifestations of reality, but that they cannot be intermingled. This reminded me of the ancient Greek concept that if one thought carefully, it revealed the truth. Physical experiments were considered useless, only likely to lead one into confusion and anyway incapable of proving a mental concept to be in error.

Spinoza's is not a personal god. We cannot communicate with him and we are not objects of his love. God is accessible to us only in our contemplation of the world around us. We love him through our attempt to understand the world.

As for our emotions, they confuse us. Only serene contemplation is the path to happiness, because it allows reason to reign supreme over sensation and desire. Spinoza believed that to be active was to think, not at all what we think of as activity, as something physical rather than mental.

Because God is perfect and all is God, it follows the everything that is, is necessary. Things are as they must be and nothing could be otherwise. As Roger Scruton explains, this is a problem for our ideas of free will and the individual self. Throughout the book Scruton does not allow Spinoza's claims to pass unchallenged, very helpful to the reader who will frequently say to himself, "now, wait a minute!"

Spinoza was a courageous thinker at a time when old certainties had been undermined. The Reformation and Counter-Reformation prompted every Christian to question what he/she believed. Martin Luther dared to say that anyone could profitably read the bible for himself, a breathtaking liberation. Spinoza was excommunicated from the Jewish faith though it did not deter him from continuing to hold his views, taking advantage of the intellectual ferment prevalent in the Netherlands where he lived.

Pick up this book and let it challenge you to define your own thinking. I found Roger Scruton's clear writing very stimulating.

[Scriptor Ignotus · Rating 4 out of 5]

"This, then, is the conclusion to which Spinoza’s metaphysics tends: nothing exists save the one substance – the self-contained, self-sustaining, and self-explanatory system which constitutes the world. This system may be understood in many ways: as God or Nature; as mind or matter; as creator or created; as eternal or temporal. It can be known adequately and clearly through its attributes, partially and confusedly through its modes. And to understand it in its totality, under the aspect of eternity, is also to know that everything in the world exists by necessity, and that it could not be other than it is."


"By achieving adequate knowledge we come to understand what is divine and eternal. On the other hand, we understand our own nature and identity sub specie durationis – under the aspect of time. For it is as enduring and finite modes that we enjoy the conatus [i.e. the endeavor of certain modes of God, like human beings, to retain an integrated existence] that distinguishes us from the self-sufficient whole of things, and to know ourselves as separate, individual existences is to be locked in the time-bound conception that leads to confused and partial knowledge. Man’s condition is essentially one of conflict: reason aspires towards the eternal totality, while the concerns of sensuous existence persist only so long as we see things temporally and partially. The message of Spinoza’s ethics can be succinctly put: our salvation consists in seeing the world sub specie aeternitatis, and in gaining thereby freedom from the bondage of time."



Bruh.

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was an OK book. The problem is that Spinoza was a nerd and his philosophy isn't that interesting. It has some kind of qualified monism + substance dualism closely resembling samkhya metaphysics (though the author doesn't appear to know this) at its core. Which I think largely makes sense, it's just not that interesting. Partly because this idea seems explored in a lot more depth in Indian philosophy, and partly because it's just so abstract. It actually seemed a little insane to me that such an innocuous philosophy ever managed to cause controversy. Anyway that seems to be the bulk of it, with an even less interesting aesthetics and totally pointless political theory tacked on. I guess I'm glad that I now know why Spinoza's religious beliefs are so misunderstood, and what kind of a person he was in his historical context. But I found myself just getting mildly annoyed with him as the book progressed. Like jeez ok we get it you are an early modernist type thinker early liberal pseudo-dutch jew. You think you solved all of philosophy and are such a head in the clouds genius that you never attain the proper worldly success which your intelligence warranted. Weeee. Get a real job Spinoza or at least take writing lessons from some Germans.

[Saman Seifi · Rating 2 out of 5]

ماکیاولی و هابز این مجموعه بهترین مدخل و شروع این دو متفکر بودند. زمینه اجتماعی و فلسفی را شرح می‌دادند و متفکر را در آن موقعیت‌یابی می‌کردند. اما این کتاب موفق نشده بود چنین کاری بکند. ترجمه به شدت نارساست. مساله کتاب مشخص نمی‌شود.
برای شروع اسپینوزا دانشنامه استنفورد مدخل بهتری است.

[Tony · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent short introduction to Spinoza's thinking. It presented his ideas in a clear and easy to follow manner.

[Feliks · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a pleasant, lucid, and therefore efficient means of gaining a basic grasp of Spinoza's aims. I enjoyed it. Spinoza turns out to be a really interesting guy. Shorter than average height, but said by his peers to be one of those easygoing guys who was always affable, gregarious, smiling and cheerful. How unusual! Of course his philosophy resembles these qualities not at all. Famously dense Latin, convoluted with much proprietary terminology; yet wholly fascinating in its details. There's something for everyone here: whether Christian, agnostic, or atheist. Spinoza was fully the intellectual giant, as his reputation attests. He offers a very elegant mix of medieval faith and early science; (similar but better than what I found in Plotinus when I went seeking it there). His writings on government, ethics, freedom, and individuality ...well...ultimately they rely heavily on an ontological argument for God; which is in itself compelling and even exquisitely laid out whether you wish to agree with it or not. It was robust enough to last a century until finally thwarted by Immanuel Kant. That's certainly nothing to be embarrassed about. Bottom line: give Benedict de Spinoza a look if you're experiencing any kind of metaphysical qualms. He is reassuring, calm, and orderly.

[JV]

Ainda devo começar Spinoza este ano e resolvi usar este material de introdução. Aprendi fatos pouco propagados como a influência de filósofos judeus e árabes nos anos de formação deste filósofo apesar de lidar com problemas cartesianos e de filosofia moderna, sua lealdade ao político neerlandês Johan de Witt e a inspiração tomada para sua ética de comunidades protestantes remonstrantes.

Mas ao próprio Spinoza tudo isso não passa de fofoca pois sua filosofia deveria transcender tudo, ser demonstrada more geométrico, e como resultado ver as coisas como realmente são – não relativamente – mas sub specie aeternitatis, como o próprio Deus a veria. Mas justamente nesse quesito, por ter ainda de ler o filósofo, me abstenho. A visão que o Scruton tenta passar de si é de um crítico imparcial que ressalta os pontos fortes e fracos dessa filosofia com sinceridade mas sem abraçar ou rejeitar de todo o sistema. A argumentação parece clara e o estilo é agradável

[Lukas Stock · Rating 3 out of 5]

As always, a good introduction. Scruton’s editorializing is a little annoying but he’s able to summarize Spinoza’s ideas concisely and almost intelligibly.

[Fernando Borretti]

Mumbo-jumbo.

[Bahman Bahman · Rating 2 out of 5]

باروخ اسپینوزا و بعدها بندیکت دِ اسپینوزا (۱۶۳۲ - ۱۶۷۷ میلادی) فیلسوف مشهور هلندی است. او قابلیت‌های علمی فراوانی داشت و گستره و اهمیت آثارش تا سال‌ها پس از مرگ او به طور کامل درک نشد. امروزه، اسپینوزا یکی از بزرگ‌ترین خردگرایان فلسفه قرن هفدهم و زمینه ساز ظهور نقد مذهبی و همچنین عصر روشنگری در قرن هجدهم به شمار می‌رود. اسپینوزا به واسطهٔ نگارش مهم‌ترین اثرش، اخلاقیات، که پس از مرگ او به چاپ رسید و در آن دوگانه‌انگاری دکارتی را به چالش می‌کشد، یکی از مهم‌ترین فیلسوفان تاریخ فلسفهٔ غرب به شمار می‌رود. فیلسوف و مورخ، گئورگ ویلهلم فریدریش هگل، دربارهٔ فیلسوفان هم عصر خود نوشت: «شما یا پیرو اسپینوزا هستید، و یا اساساً فیلسوف نیستید.»اسپینوزا یک سفاردی بود. پدر او در جریان تفتیش عقاید در پرتغال، به مدارا پذیرترین کشور جهان آن زمان یعنی هلند مهاجرت کردند تا از مجازات یهودی بودن در امان بمانند. اسپینوزا در جامعهٔ یهودیان هلند بزرگ شد و در آنجا تعلیمات یهودی را نزد تنی چند از بهترین خاخامهای عصر خود فرا گرفت. اسپینوزا عهد عتیق و سایر متون یهودی را به خوبی فرا گرفت، اما با گذر زمان نظرهای بحث‌برانگیزی دربارهٔ سندیت عهد عتیق و سرشت امر مقدس پیدا کرد که به نظر می‌رسد در نهایت منجر به تکفیر و رانده شدن او از جامعهٔ یهودیان در سن ۲۳ سالگی شد. حتی پیش از واکنش یهودیان، کلیسای کاتولیک کتاب‌های او را در فهرست کتاب‌های ممنوعه قرار داد و پروتستانهای هلندی این کتاب‌ها را به آتش کشیدند.پیشهٔ اسپینوزا تراش عدسی بود و زندگی آرامی داشت. او در طول زندگی، جایزه‌ها، افتخارات و تدریس در مکان‌های صاحب‌نام را رد کرد، و سهم ارث خانوادگی‌اش را به خواهرش بخشید. دستاوردهای فلسفی و شخصیت اخلاقی اسپینوزا زمینه‌ساز آن شد تا ژیل دلوز، او را «شاهزادهٔ فلسفه» بنامد. اسپینوزا در سن ۴۴ سالگی، ظاهراً به خاطر بیماری ریه که احتمالاً سل یا سیلیکوز بوده و در اثر استنشاق گرد شیشه در زمان انجام کارش وخیم‌تر شده، در گذشت. اسپینوزا در صحن نیو کرک مسیحیان در لاهه دفن شده‌است. کاتولیک‌های آن زمان با اسپینوزا و بسیاری از متفکران آن زمان که اتفاقاً از بزرگ‌ترین نوابغ تاریخ بشر بودند مخالفت می‌کردند و به این‌گونه مخالفت‌ها اکثراً جنبه عمل می‌پوشاندند مثلاً تقریباً همان زمان در ایتالیا کار جوردانو برونو یکسره کرده او را زنده در آتش سوزاندند! او بسیار شانس آورد که مثل سقراط و جوردانو برونو اعدام نشد.

[Jerome · Rating 1 out of 5]

The Kindle Edition of this book was only $1.99, but it redirected to an Orion Books ebook published in 2011 that was completely different from the hardback/paperback editions published by Oxford University Press. This made reading with a group impossible and there was no complete e-book available. The first chapter on his "Life and Character" was only 4 paragraphs. Ten additional chapters only discuss different topics in "Ethics"lack insight and direction. He copies several quotes without comment. You're likely to have a better understanding by reading the Wikipedia entry.

[Hollis Williams · Rating 3 out of 5]

A nice introduction to the thought of Spinoza, although 90% of it went over my head, to be honest.

[Mathew · Rating 3 out of 5]

An informative introduction to Spinoza. However, the tone of the author is somewhat irritating at times. The book can often feel like a critique, rather than an unbiased overview, of Spinoza's philosophy. An unusual derivation from the kind of balance one has come to expect from the 'A Very Short Introduction' series. Roger seems to have a particular problem with Spinoza's use of the term 'In so far as'. He also seems to be confused by the notion that the experience of self is derived from the simultaneous arising of myriad conditions, upon which it is ultimately dependent. 'Insofar' as this is common in many of the eastern philosophical traditions, this idea is nowhere near as controversial as the honourable gentleman attempts to make out. One could argue that the author may benefit from a cooling flavour of the Dao, or a gentle nudge in the direction of dependent origination. I somewhat enjoyed the read. But, all in all, a solid three out of five.

[Ali Rahnamae · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is clear that the writer who himself is a rewarding philosopher has an adequat and thorough understanding of Spinoza's thought but it does not mean that reading the book is easy and in fact, I guess, it is better to read the Spinoza's Ethics first to understand better Scruton's exposition of the great thinker of Rationalism era. Also, it doesn't necessarily mean that the book would be useless for introductory readers for, specially, the first chapter was very useful in a sense that it provided the reader with a historical background and the chapter about Spinoza's political thoughts is highly intelligible.

[Daniel Wright · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chapter 1: Life and character
Chapter 2: Background
Chapter 3: God
Chapter 4: Man
Chapter 5: Freedom
Chapter 6: The body politic
Chapter 7: Spinoza's legacy

[Canton Little · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good overview. It was short and to the point. This is helpful for my Modern Philosophy class.

[Jeremy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quotes from the author, Roger Scruton:

"While Spinoza did not condemn marriage, he rejected it for himself, perhaps fearing the 'ill temper of a woman,' and in any case recognizing in matrimony a threat to his scholarly interests."

"He also followed Aristotle in seeing reason as a kind of discipline, which could turn our emotions in the direction of happiness."

"However, most of mankind neither aspire to the inner freedom of the philosopher, nor live in ways that permit them to understand it."

"His theology is essentially impersonal, just as his conception of the physical world is essentially theological."

"The good life is that which is most 'useful' - favourable - to our nature; the bad life is that which is most opposed to it. Vice and wickedness are to be avoided, not because they are punished by God (who engages in no such absurd endeavours), but because they are at variance with our nature and lead us to despair."

"The very same 'emendation of the passions' that leads us to an adequate conception of the world, leads us also to emancipation: to that power over our own situation which is all that we can genuinely mean by freedom."

"Freedom is not freedom from necessity, but rather the consciousness of necessity."

"The free man is one conscious of the necessities that compel him... He avoids hatred, envy, contempt, and other negative emotions; he is unaffected by fear, hope, and superstition; he is secure in the knowledge that virtue is power, power is freedom, and freedom is happiness. 'A free man thinks of nothing less than death, and his wisdom is a meditation not on death but on life.' His blessedness consists in the serene contemplation of the whole of things, bound in community with like-minded spirits, by 'the love which acknowledges as its cause freedom of mind.'"

"The attempt to order our affairs by revelation leads to a particular kind of society - which we might call the 'prophetic order.' The prophetic order is at war with freedom of thought, and fiercely defensive of its sacred revelations; in such an order men are not united by free association under law, but led by the prophet towards a common goal, to which they must subscribe as the first condition of their allegiance. The prophetic order may survive without law, without civil institutions, and without liberal education and opinion. It faces the surrounding world with a mask of unyielding belligerence, feeling threatened in its very being by the rational thought whose voice it has vainly tried to silence."

Quotes from Spinoza:

"Men are mistaken in thinking themselves free, and this opinion consists in this alone, that they are conscious of their actions and ignorant of the causes whereby they are determined."

"We do not strive towards, desire or long for a thing because we deem it to be good; but on the contrary, we deem a thing to be good because we strive, wish, desire or long for it."

"Scripture, when it says that God is angry with sinners, and that He is a Judge who takes cognizance of human actions, passes sentence on them, and judges them, is speaking humanly, and in a way adapted to the received opinion of the masses; for its purpose is not to teach philosophy, nor to render men wise, but to make them obedient."

[N · Rating 4 out of 5]

My 3-star attention averages out this 5-star book to a 4-star read. Any of Roger Scruton's books feel to me like his Wagner essays, musical criticism regardless of subject matter, ie I appreciate the existence of deeper meaning without understanding it, enjoy the beauty that he so clearly sees within it without seeing it myself and generally accept that I'm here to read about the very personal experience an expert has when engaging with a difficult stimulus that is currently beyond me. I began to access this book only starting with its sections on human freedom and political theory, whose ideas were the most intelligible and therefore least insightful, especially since the insights lay not in the expression of the ideas but the process of their reasoned extraction from the set of metaphysical axioms explained in the previous sections, the ones that gave me a vague experience of comprehension without actual comprehension, the same sort of intuitive grasp that I was amused to find tackled specifically by Spinoza as being meaningless without the resulting formulation into theory.

Notes
Spanish Jew exiled after Isabella/Ferdinand drive the tolerant Moors out of Spain. Jews forced to convert to catholicism. Flee to tolerant Holland, but under scrutiny, even by Dutch Jews.

Meaningless to talk about knowledge through ‘language of man’ (Moses Maimonides), so Spinoza tries to replicate Euclidian geometry (self-evident axioms leading to proofs/theories) in the realm of the sciences.

Proof by paradox of immanent God: by ontological argument for God as only substance that is independent, and causally dependent on nothing, then how can any of his actions be contingent on certain events by man, like eating an apple or building a tower?

Linear algebra’s 2 variables (cartesian plane) and Euclidian geometry are both two mutually exclusive ways of explaining a certain truth, ie you can elaborate the entire theorem in 1 mode or the other, but not skip from 1 to the other within the proof. In the same way, mind and body are two different modes (extensions) of the same truth (substance)

Difference between ‘members are in a club’ (belong to a club) and Spinoza’s version of ‘in’, ie ‘club is in its members’, ie members have independent existence but club does not. If A is in B, then it is dependent on B for existence. Extrapolating, there is a certain C which is not in anything, ie not dependent on anything for existence. This is a Substance.

0, 1, infinity not as numbers but as ontological categories. So Upanishadic. Treating them as symbols for the abstract ideas of ‘non-existence’, ‘independent existence’, and ‘boundariless existence’ respectively.

“Happiness comes only through the right exercise of practical reason, so as to fulfil our nature, and not to thwart it. A rational being has not only reason, however, but also emotion. His happiness depends upon his establishing such an order in his emotions as to be led always in the path that reason advises. This in turn can be achieved only by developing certain dispositions of character – the virtues – which lead a man to do and to feel spontaneously that which is in accordance with rational nature.”

the wise man, in so far as he is considered as such, is scarcely moved in spirit: but, being conscious of himself, of God, and of things, by a certain eternal necessity, he never ceases to be, but possesses eternally true complacency (acquiescentia) of spirit.

Miracles are impossible, and the belief in them nothing more than a peculiarly exhilarating form of ignorance

Spinoza’s conception of the state is of a system of laws and institutions, organized so as to permit the influence of reason. He implicitly contrasts the power of philosophy, which is guided by reason, with that of faith, which is guided by prophecy.

The task of politics is to build a constitution that is obedient to reason, just as the task of the individual person is to understand the laws of reason and submit to their sovereignty. This submission of the state to reason is secured, not by the virtue of the ruler, but by the adoption of a constitution that makes the virtue of the ruler irrelevant: if a state is to be capable of lasting, its administration

our thoughts are liable to be dominated by the imagination, and we fall easy victim to the prophetic order which promises a passionate salvation. We may then welcome slavery as the end of fear and conflict, not realizing that ‘peace is more than the mere absence of war, but rather a virtue which springs from the fortitude of the soul’ (P v, 4); however, ‘if slavery, barbarism and desolation are to be called peace, peace is the greatest misfortune that men can suffer’

It is the political order alone which can establish the possibility of a genuine peace between people, and our allegiance to it is not a form of coercion or slavery, but on the contrary a form of freedom. In obeying the laws of a liberal constitution, we obey the dictates of reason, and to be compelled by reason is to be free. For the citizen of the liberal polity, therefore, civil disobedience, which threatens the condition upon which his freedom depends, involves only a partial understanding of what is at stake, and therefore an inadequate idea of his own motive. Such disobedience is an expression, not of freedom, but of inner bondage.

While reasonable people will see the intrinsic virtue of offices, the mass of mankind will always prefer the rule of prophets and figureheads, who claim a purely personal loyalty. Only ceremony can attract the imagination to look with favour on the offices whose true virtue it cannot understand.

The history of the Netherlands proved that the towns could protect themselves only when the citizens were prepared to lay down their lives for their common salvation. In public as in private life (E 4, 58), therefore, honour may be required by reason, and is a part of power.

The prophetic order, which promises salvation, in fact destroys the conditions of our salvation, by sacrificing religion to its outward form, and so destroying the precious principle upon which peace and happiness depend: the respect for truth. It is not the prophetic order, but the political order, which has the final claim to be God’s vicar on earth. Only in a secular state, therefore, can true religion flourish.

Spinoza, like Pascal, saw that the new science must inevitably ‘disenchant’ the world. By following truth as our standard, we chase from their ancient abodes the miraculous, the sacred, and the holy. The danger, however, is not that we follow this standard, for we have no other. It is that we follow it only so far as to lose our faith, and not so far as to gain it. We rid the world of useful superstitions, but continue to see it in fragmented form. Oppressed by its meaninglessness we succumb to new and less useful illusions – superstitions born of disenchantment, which are all the more dangerous for taking man, rather than God, as their object. The remedy, Spinoza reminds us, is not to retreat into the pre-scientific worldview, but to go further along the path of disenchantment; losing both the old superstitions and the new, we discover at last a meaning in truth itself.