Baruch Spinoza

1632-1677 · Dutch (Sephardic Jewish) · Metaphysics, Epistemology, Ethics, Political Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion, Biblical Scholarship

I shall consider human actions and desires in exactly the same manner, as though I were concerned with lines, planes, and solids.

At twenty-three, Baruch Spinoza received the most ferocious excommunication on record from the Amsterdam Portuguese-Jewish community — its Hebrew writ condemning "abominable heresies" and "monstrous deeds" without specifying either. He spent the rest of his life outside every religious institution, grinding lenses for income, writing in Latin, and producing a system that genuinely alarmed the seventeenth century: God and Nature are one and the same thing.

Topics Baruch Spinoza addresses

substance monism
Deus sive Natura
substance, mode, attribute
the Principle of Sufficient Reason
causa sui
necessitarianism
natura naturans and natura naturata
the parallelism doctrine
mind as idea of body
adequate and inadequate ideas
the three kinds of knowledge
common notions
the conatus doctrine
the affects
freedom as determination by one's own essence
the bondage of the passions
virtue as power of acting
the free man
the intellectual love of God
blessedness as virtue itself
the eternity of the mind
sub specie aeternitatis
the rejection of imperium in imperio
prophecy as imagination

Questions to put to Baruch Spinoza

Substance, Attributes, and Modes

What do you mean by substance, and why can there be only one?
How can God or Nature be the only substance if I see many different things around me?
What's the difference between natura naturans and natura naturata?
How do you define an attribute, and why are Thought and Extension both attributes of one substance?
What does it mean to say God is causa sui — its own cause?

Necessity, Freedom, and the Principle of Sufficient Reason

Why do you think everything that exists must exist by absolute necessity?
If nothing is contingent, how can I make real choices?
What do you mean by freedom if the will isn't free to choose otherwise?
How does the Principle of Sufficient Reason lead to your necessitarianism?
Does your view leave any room for genuine possibility in nature?

Mind, Body, and Parallelism

What does it mean to say the mind is the idea of the body?
How can mind and body be the same thing if they seem so different?
Why do you reject the Cartesian picture of mind-body interaction?
What's the order and connection of ideas being the same as the order and connection of things?
If the mind doesn't cause bodily actions, how do I decide to raise my arm?

The Affects, Conatus, and the Bondage of the Passions

What do you mean by conatus — the striving to persevere in being?
How are joy, sadness, and desire related to my power of acting?
What's the difference between adequate and inadequate ideas?
Why do you call the passions a form of bondage?
How does the conatus doctrine handle cases like suicide or self-destruction?

The Free Man and the Intellectual Love of God

What does the free man look like in your ethics?
What are the three kinds of knowledge, and why does scientia intuitiva matter most?
What do you mean by seeing things sub specie aeternitatis — under the aspect of eternity?
How is the intellectual love of God different from religious devotion?
Why do you say blessedness is virtue itself, not the reward of virtue?

Scripture, Prophecy, and Freedom to Philosophize

How do you read the Bible as a historical and political document?
What's your argument that miracles are just natural events misunderstood?
Why do you think prophecy works through imagination rather than reason?
What's the universal religion you find in Scripture, and how is it different from doctrine?
Why is freedom to philosophize necessary for political stability?
How do you respond to the charge that the Treatise is atheism in disguise?

Converse with Baruch Spinoza on Simposeum. Replies are grounded in Baruch Spinoza's own writing, cited to the page.