Something to

look at until
we start
Spinoza
 Presentation outline

• Spinoza in his time and place

(Spinoza in context)

• Spinoza the philosopher

• Spinoza the humanist

Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677)
In 1632 Spinoza was born, then was
circumcised by the mohel of the
Portuguese Jews of Amsterdam
 Spinoza, the man
• Born and lived in Amsterdam (1632-1677)
• Family was Portuguese Crypto-Jews, then later
reverted to Judaism when left Spain for Holland
• Mother died when he was 6 years old, father
when he was 22
• Extended family was prosperous merchants
• Education at Hebrew school, with added
secular tutors at home.
Spinoza was a serious student
 Spinoza the linguist
• Knew Portuguese and Spanish from parents
• Knew Dutch from his environment
• Knew Hebrew from religious school
• Learned Latin from a tutor
• Knew some French and Italian
• Maybe some German from a German tutor
who taught him Latin
• Self- taught in some Greek
Born in Amsterdam, died in the Hague
Amsterdam in 1660
 Spinoza lived during the
Dutch “Golden Age”. Cheap
energy from windpower fed
sawmills and made Holland a
world boat building and shipping
power (think Dutch East Indies).
This prosperity and a society that
welcomed artists, scientists,
philosophers and religious
diversity made Holland a hotbed
for new ideas and an ideal place
for Spinoza – who pushed to the
limits and then far beyond, which
ideas could be tolerated.
It was a “Little Ice Age” in Europe – unusually cold, for decades
Amsterdam Town Hall
Dam Square, commerce heart of city
Dutch tulip mania
peaked in 1637, when
Spinoza was 5 years
old.
This particular bulb
type set a record as
selling for 10X the
annual earnings of a
skilled craftsman, for
just one bulb!
Dutch tulip mania – the first of
modern “bubbles” bursting
Amsterdam synagogue built right after Spinoza’s
death – regarded then as the 8th wonder of the
world because of its size. Still there today.
Rembrandt was a Dutch contemporary
Also Vermeer
Rembrandt was close to the Jewish community
and used many Jewish themes and models

Saul and David

Ahasueras
We can see how some contemporary Jews looked and dressed
Sephardic dress in 1600’s
 Spinoza was a lens grinder, by profession

Nobility kept ornately decorated lens grinding machines as art objects.

Spinoza made lenses for spectacles, magnifying lenses, and telescopes.
He eventually died from many years of inhaling glass dust.
Rembrandt painting, with a lens
The microscope had just been invented

by Dutch scientist Van Leeuwenhoek

Tiny lenses were needed for it
The telescope had
also been
recently invented.
It and the
microscope both
need lenses to
operate
Spinoza made contributions to optics

His theory of the rainbow

correctly explains the role of
water drops in its creation
This was an age of important optical discoveries,
with the microscope and the telescope

Science and
this Age of
Reason were
opening up
new worlds to
explore, with
important
philosophical
and religious
consequences
 Spinoza the Philosopher
Spinoza developed the first “theory of everything”.
It is a lot to swallow in a short presentation like
this one.
But let’s dive in and to try to assess it
Spinoza took a deductive approach,
like Euclid’s geometry

Starting with a few premises he built up an

enormous philosophical edifice – a theory
of everything, people included
But the whole edifice is only as strong
as those few starting premises

If these are false or unclear the whole structure gets very

unsteady, since it is resting on a very small pivot area
Then, like a house
of cards, the whole
thing tends to
collapse. Most
grand, expansive,
philosophical
theories are like
that. They may
contain very many
interesting ideas but
basically lack the
logical rigor that
good philosophy
requires.
Adding complexity to a fatally flawed
system does not make it any stronger
The weight of Spinoza’s huge structure could not
be supported by his weak and flawed premises
• This does not mean that
other philosophers have
been more successful
than Spinoza in tackling
the hard questions

• There is always a problem

with the premises that a
philosophical system
starts from
 Argument by design, for the existence of God
(Flawed premises invalidate conclusion)
• Premise 1
Some things (e.g. watches) are very complicated. They contain many parts which fit and work
together in an orderly and regular manner to achieve their end (e.g. telling the time).
Premise 2
This complexity is evidence of design - the parts could not have come together in this way by
chance - they must have been put together deliberately to achieve their purpose.
• Premise 3
Where there is evidence of design, there must be a designer. In the case of a watch, this is
the watchmaker.
• Premise 4
The universe shows evidence of design. Nature has many complicated parts which work
together to achieve their end (e.g. the eye, the pollination of flowers by bees, the orbits of
the planets, the conditions of the Big Bang). They could not have come together in this way
by chance.
• Conclusion
If the universe shows evidence of design, then it must have a designer. This we call God.
Therefore God exists This argument is not from Spinoza

Premise #2 and #4 are false, so conclusion is not justified. Extremely simple

recursive rules in nature can lead to extreme complexity, in physics and in
biology. Evolution then keeps those biology results that work well. No designer
is needed.
The questions are the key to fame
Most philosophers
become famous for the
questions they ask, not
for the very flawed
answers they give, like
Descartes (here) and his
“Mind-Body problem”,
or Spinoza and his
struggles with religion
and human destiny.
 Tough questions

Descartes – “how can the physical brain Spinoza – “Do we have free will?
think?” (his answer – “No!”)
 Descartes tried to doubt the existence of everything and
concluded that at least he existed (“I think, therefore I am”).
Seeing the fly here is not enough to know that it truly exists.
But then he waffled and accepted God as a given.

Spinoza was a braver

man and excluded all
supernatural content
from his system, since
it can be doubted and
is unnecessary.
 Spinoza’s influence
• Spinoza was very important for his own ideas
• And his critique’s of the ideas of others, like
Descartes.
• But few take seriously his grand philosophical
project, a theory of everything. One modern
philosophical journal rejected a submitted
article about Spinoza, saying “we are not now,
have never been, or will we ever be interested
in Spinoza”
Spinoza the pioneer
Unlocking Spinoza’s
complex ideas about
ethics, nature,
psychology, emotions,
politics and biblical
criticism is not easy.
But he tackled the very
big questions and had
some shocking ideas for
his time.
Some things in life are simple, like men,
but Spinoza’s thought is not one of them
We should try to learn from a deep thinker
like Spinoza, to help us with life choices

We are always facing both large and small issues

and have decisions to make
Spinoza the humanist
Getting into Spinoza’s
metaphysics is heavy
lifting, but Spinoza the
humanist is much more
accessible, and of
greater interest to our
group.
We all know where we are headed, so
Spinoza’s views on religion are of
special interest
 It is hard to put a spin on death

“Relax, honey – change is good.”

 What comes at the end of life – a great
adventure, something awful, or nothing?
Spinoza came down firmly on the side of “nothing”
Spinoza rejected all supernatural ideas
Spinoza the skeptic
A willful blindness to the
flaws in religions was not
his cup of tea. Spinoza
tried to see clearly and
bravely, starting with
“God”
A skeptical thinker will have a hard time with the
way God and religion are often presented
Spinoza rejected the anthropomorphic images
of a god, like Jupiter here, as do most skeptics
Spinoza also rejected traditional ideas
about heaven and hell
Spinoza rejected a literal reading of the bible

Adam and Eve, by Von Stuck

These are
unsophisticated
religious ideas
that are taught
to small
children before
they are old
enough to know
any better.
He valued reason way above sense
impressions, and rejected miracles
Spinoza was very familiar with Christian
thought and had many Christian friends

Water into wine miracle

Some inconvenient (for us) truths about Spinoza
• Spinoza was a deeply religious man (this needs to
be explained, but is still quite confusing)
• He believed in a pantheistic God, a god of Nature,
who is conscious and omniscient but has no free
will or purposes, with no care for us
• He rejected free will and was a complete
determinist. Minds as well as bodies are part of
deterministic Nature
• He distanced himself a very long way from
Judaism. We cannot really say that he was “one
of us”, although many do say that
Most people find complete determinism to
be a very disturbing idea
The one exception
we might not mind
is romance, where
we may feel that
we were fated
(kismet) to be with
some particular
person
 Spinoza and free will
• We think we have free will but it is an illusion. Everything is
predetermined by physics = Nature, which is the same as God

• Nature = God has no free will of its own

• All we can control, in a free will sense, is our emotions – to

some degree

• We can change our emotions some by understanding why we

feel that way (he was a very early precursor to
psychoanalysis)
Spinoza advised an early form of
psychoanalysis
 Spinoza ideas that shocked his contemporaries

• Spinoza thought that a mind is that part of

God’s mind that is aware of a particular body
• There is no causal connection between mind
and body, just a parallel correlation
• We are not morally responsible for our
actions, since they are determined in advance
• Both our thoughts and our bodily actions are
predetermined
Spinoza would accept this line of thought
This is a rather grim
view of the world
Spinoza saw that it is a dangerous place out there
Spinoza thought that fear is what keeps
most of us from evil deeds
Spinoza considered everyone to be out for themselves
Yet Spinoza urged a life of virtue
Spinoza seemed to have incompatible ideas about how
we should live a life of virtue if we also have no free will
It’s hard to see
how living an
ethical life can
be married to
complete
determinism
Spinoza’s noble
impulses were
dragged down by
the weight of his
fatalistic philosophy
of complete
determinism
It’s hard to put a good face on this basic flaw
Spinoza’s thought
Spinoza’s thought teeters
between bold radical ideas
about God, man, free will,
ethics, etc. that are clearly
expressed, and fuzzy concepts
that are supposed to ground
everything in the rigor of
logical deduction. But without
a solid basis his ideas become
just very interesting opinions,
like much of philosophy
through history.
 Spinoza’s influence
• Many writers, artists, scientists and
philosophers have been inspired by the
boldness of his ideas, his personal courage,
and his putting reason as the source of all
knowledge
• His exemplary personal life was one of
generosity, humility, frugality, and a kind of
“saintly” disposition – a model for many
people
Even today Spinoza casts a big shadow
People were starting to hear about
Spinoza’s alarming and radical ideas
Certainty from belief in a Holy Book
was being attacked
In the Age
of Reason,
religious
certainty
was about
to take a
big plunge
Spinoza’s heretical ideas got the authorities very upset
Spinoza was excommunicated in 1656
The Church was
also trying to stamp
out heresies and
the Dutch Jews did
not want to offend
their Christian host
community by
tolerating an
atheist within the
Jewish community
 Spinoza’s 3 top heresies
1) Angels don’t exist – they are imaginary
 2) God is purely material (=
Nature)

And is controlled by the laws of physics, just like everything else –

which is only natural since god = everything = pantheism
3) The soul dies with the body
The “soul” and the body
are somehow different
aspects of a single
substance. The soul is
not “in” the body in a
normal location sense,
but it is so closely
associated with the
body that it cannot
survive the body’s
death. Hence, no
afterlife. No heaven or
hell.
 But Spinoza did not mind being cut off by
excommunication, and had left most of Judaism behind
He felt he could no longer fit in the way he would like
For Spinoza the bible was ready for a great
fall – and he undertook a radical critique
 Today we have
critical biblical thinkers
like Sonny and Cher,
who have benefited
from Spinoza’s efforts
hundreds of year ago.
Or not.
 Spinoza took aim at the weaker
aspects of the bible, as a document

He thought
the Torah had
been written
by Ezra, not
Moses, and
that it was a
purely human
inspired work
Spinoza read the bible with
the same skepticism that we
bring to the supermarket
tabloids. My favorite tabloid
headline =

“Skydiver eaten by starving birds”

Spinoza was a pioneer in

critical biblical scholarship
Spinoza was a very
brave man, like these
strollers here. He boldly
and willingly, without
any safety net,
abandoned both his
community and his
culture
Spinoza died in 1677 in The Hague,
with his main works yet unpublished
 Spinoza was a mensch
• He won a legal dispute with a stepsister over his
father’s estate, yet gave her almost all of it.
• A close friend wanted to make him sole heir.
Spinoza declined and also declined a very large
money gift.
• When the friend died and left him 500 florins,
he would only accept 300.
• He was very widely liked, even by his religious
and philosophical opponents
 The bleakness of Spinoza’s philosophy is at
odds with the warmth and appeal of the man

He thought we should seek

fulfillment in each other
We can help each
other towards
happiness
Spinoza had many good friends, but never married.
He was a happy bachelor, married to his ideas
Spinoza did
not become
discouraged or
bitter over his
ideas about
life, like
nothingness
after death
and complete
determinism
Spinoza had an
upbeat spirit that
endeared him to
his many friends
 Like Nietzsche, Spinoza’s thought has been
widely misrepresented and very selectively used.

Theists,
deists and
atheists have
all claimed
Spinoza as
one of their
own, by
willful
misreadings
This can make for some strange bedfellows
These days everyone is climbing on board the Spinoza bandwagon, mistakenly or
not. The diversity of his thought and his appealing personality have attracted many.
We don’t want to use up too much time on
this, so that we can still have a discussion
Enough already – The End