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Baruch Spinoza: Ethics Demonstrated
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Interest in the controversial 17th-century Dutch thinker Baruch Spinoza seems to be enjoying a resurgence. Atwo-volume work by a York professor was launched last year, and now a student-organized symposium, "Spinoza: Ethics, Interpretation, Power", coming up in February hopes to capitalize on the growing curiosity.
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Spinoza has had influence beyond the confines of philosophy. The nineteenth century novellist, George Eliot, produced her own translation of the Ethics, the first known English translation thereof. The twentieth century novellist, W. Somerset Maugham, alluded to one of Spinoza's central concepts with the title of his novel, Of Human Bondage. Albert Einstein named Spinoza as the philosopher who exerted the most influence on his world view ( Weltanschauung). Spinoza equated God (infinite substance) with Nature, consistent with Einstein's belief in an impersonal deity. In 1929, Einstein was asked in a telegram by Rabbi Herbert S. Goldstein whether he believed in God.
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Spinoza then moved to a suburb of The Hague, where he worked as a lens grinder. The Ethics was completed between 1670 and 1675. In 1670 he anonymously published his Theological-Political Treatise. In addition to these not very extensive writings, Spinoza conducted a large correspondence with various scientists and philosophers. Two of the most important were Henry Oldenburg, the first secretary of the British Royal Society, and Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz, who visited him in 1676. Three years previously Spinoza had declined a professorship at the University of Heidelberg in order to preserve his "freedom of philosophizing."
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From 1670 Spinoza lived at The Hague, at first in the Verkade, then not far from this spot in the Paviljoensgracht, near the monument erected in 1880. Both houses are still in existence, but the latter, in which Spinoza died, has lately been completely rebuilt. The philosopher laboured with zeal on his great work; in order to be independent and undisturbed in elaborating his system of philosophy he declined a call to a professorship at Heidelberg. His plan to publish his system of ethics in 1675 failed, owing to the opposition of his enemies. Originally Spinoza seems to have had the intention to found a kind of philosophical world-religion. He believed that the basic ideas of his view of the world were to be found among the old Hebrews, in Christ, and in St. Paul.
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Spinoza's Ethics consists of five books. Oddly enough, the first is about God and the meaning of substance. The second book deals with the mind and knowledge. The third, fourth, and fifth books seem concerned with topics usually associated with ethical discussions: the passions, human enslavement to the emotions, and finally human freedom by virtue of intellect. Hence the central concern of the treatise is to move from a consideration of God to the realization of human freedom by an analysis of knowledge and passion and their conflict. Thus, for Spinoza, an ethic that studies the purpose of life is simultaneously a metaphysic, a theory of knowledge, and a psychology of human nature.
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It was during this same period, in the late 1650's, that Spinoza embarked upon his literary career. His first work, the Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect, is an attempt to formulate a philosophical method that would allow the mind to form the clear and distinct ideas that are necessary for its perfection. It contains, in addition, reflection upon the various kinds of knowledge, an extended treatment of definition, and a lengthy analysis of the nature and causes of doubt. For reasons that are unknown, the Treatise was left unfinished, though it appears that Spinoza always intended to complete it. Shortly thereafter, while in Rijnsburg, Spinoza set to work on his Short Treatise on God, Man, and His Well-Being. This work, circulated privately among friends, foreshadows many of the themes of his mature work, the Ethics. Most notably, it contains an unambiguous statement of the most famous of Spinoza's theses - the identity of God and Nature.
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Ethics Demonstrated