Spinoza and the Rise of Liberalism

Description

In this classic work (orig. 1987) the author undertakes to show how Spinoza's philosophical ideas, particularly his political ideas, were influenced by his underlying emotional responses to the conflicts of his time. It thus differs form most professional philosophical analyses of the philosophy of Spinoza. The author identifies and discusses three periods in the development of Spinoza's thought and shows how they were reactions to the religious, political and economic developments in the Netherlands at the time. In his first period, Spinoza reacted very strongly to the competitive capitalism of the Amsterdam Jews whose values were "so thoroughly pervaded by an economic ethics that decrees the stock exchange approached in dignity the decrees of God," and of the ruling classes of Amsterdam, and was led out only to give up his business activities but also to throw in his lot with the Utopian groups of the day. In his second period, Spinoza developed serious doubts about the practicality of such idealistic movements and became a "mature political partisan" of Dutch liberal republicanism. The collapse of republicanism and the victory of the royalist party brought further disillusionment. Having become more reserved concerning democratic processes, and having decided that "every form of government could be made consistent with the life of free men," Spinoza devoted his time and efforts to deciding what was essential to any form of government which would make such a life possible.In his carefully crafted introduction to this new edition, Lewis Feuer responds to his critics, and reviews Spinoza's worldview in the light of the work of later scientists sympathetic to this own basic standpoint. He reviews Spinoza's arguments for the ethical and political contributions of the principle of determinism, and examines how these have guided, and at times frustrated, students and scholars of the social and physical sciences who have sought to understand and advance these disciplines. Spinoza struggled to understand the crisis of his time. Like political philosophers in the twentieth century, he found that events did violence to his political theories. He was proud of Amsterdam’s liberalism, and hopeful that the Dutch Republican experiment would succeed. When political catastrophe came in 1672, Spinoza brooded upon the incapacity of the masses to sustain a liberal government. His social feelings led him to sympathy with the common man; as a social scientist, however, he noted that common men were often irrational and hostile to freedom. He was moved to withdraw to a secluded community of like-minded friends, but he also longed to participate in political action. This young excommunicate gave to the pantheist mysticism of the revolutionary movements its noblest expression; he was also, however, stirred by the marvels which were being opened by the new technology of science, the telescope and microscope. He tried with immense power to identify the God of his mystic vision with a Mathematical God of Science. His system broke apart; scientist and mystic warred within him unreconciled. He worked, a precursor of psychoanalysis, to make men free by helping them to understand their passions; but he also wondered if blessedness came only in unity with God. The path toward freedom seemed often lost in an age of hatred. Preface ix Introduction to Transaction Edition xiii Chapter 1 The Excommunication of Baruch Spinoza The Decree of A n a th e m a .................................................. 1 The Jewish Community of Amsterdam ......................... 2 Why Spinoza Was Excommunicated............................... 4 The Economic and Political Structure of Amsterdam J e w r y ................................................................................. 5 The Use of Excommunication as a Socio-economic Weapon: the Cases of Menasseh ben Israel and Uriel A c o s ta ................................................................................. 9 How Spinoza Became a Liberal Republican . . . . 17 Spinoza’s Rejection of Jewish Authority . . . . 22 Spinoza’s Judges: the Commercial Magnates and Rabbis Aboab and M orteira........................................................ 24 The T r i a l .......................................................................... 33 Chapter 2 Revolutionist in Mystic Withdrawal The Periods of Spinoza’s T h o u g h t............................... 38 The First Stage: Retreat Among the Religious Communists .......................................................................... 40 Spinoza’s Mennonite F riends........................................... 43 Spinoza’s Meeting With an English Quaker Missionary 47 Spinoza's Pantheism and the Radical Thought of the Seventeenth C entury........................................................ 52 Chapter 3 Political Scientist in the Cause of Human Liberation The Political Philosopher as Political Participant . 58 The Political S e ttin g ........................................................ 61 The Birth of L iberalism .................................................. 65 The Calvinist Party in the Netherlands......................... 69 Spinoza and John de Witt: the Geometrical Method in Politics.................................................................... 76 Spinoza and the Mass of M a n k in d ............................... 80 Determinism and Social Science: the Guide to Action and the Apotheosis of A cquiescence......................... 82 Chapter 4 The Promise and Anguish of Democracy The Limits of Democracy and the Futility of Revolution ................................................................................. 87 Demonstration of the Futility of Revolution . 90 What Is D em o cra cy ? ........................................................ 101 Manifesto for Freedom ........................................................ 108 T o Preserve the R ep u b lic.................................................. 119 Chapter 5 Philosophic Liberal in a Reactionary Age 1672—Year of Catastrophe.................................................. 136 The Trauma of Democracy: the People as Mob . 138 Spinoza Withdraws A g a i n ............................................ 139 Why Did the Liberal Republic F a ll? ............................... 150 Theory of a Commercial Aristocracy............................... 158 Constitution for the Dictatorship of the Commercial A r is t o c r a c y .................................................................... 164 The Impasse of Authoritarian Liberalism . . . . 175 Academic Freedom and Public Education . . . . 179 A Republican Conceives the Theory of Limited Monarchy ................................................................................. 182 The Masses: Free Men or Slaves?..................................... 192 Chapter 6 A Free Man’s Philosophy Mystic and Scientist: the Incompatible Components of Spinoza’s M e ta p h y sic s.................................................. 198 T he Ethics of the Free Man as a Critique of the Calvinist E t h i c s ..................................................................... 200 The Mystic Rejection of Libertine Hedonism . 207 The Therapy of Self-understanding: Precursor to Freud 210 Intellectual Love of God and Intellectual Hatred . 215 The Eternity of the Human Mind: Spinoza’s Leap Beyond the Geometrical M eth o d ..................................... 221 Ultimate Uncertainty: the Failure of the Geometrical M e t h o d ........................................................................... 227 Spinoza as a Left C a r te s ia n ............................................ The Infinity of God: the Discovery of the Plurality 229 of A ttrib u tes.................................................................... 233 All Things Live in God: Spinoza’s Panpsychism . Scientific Determinism and Enslavement to God: a Masochist Projection........................................................ 235 The Mathematical Method: the Language of Artisans and M e r c h a n ts .............................................................. 239 The Final Disunity of Spinoza’s Thought: Linguistic 242 Nonsense or Linguistic Transfiguration? . . . . 247 E p il o g u e ....................................................................................... 254 N o t e s ............................................................................................. 259 Index ............................................................................................. 309