Spinoza vol 2 ebook: Chapter 10: Concluding Remarks on Volume 2

Chapter 10: Concluding Remarks on Volume 2

In this blog ebook, I have examined Spinoza’s philosophy of life, death and the immortality of the soul through two of his texts (Ethics and Short Treatise) and one letter (32). In this volume, I narrowed my focus within these primary sources to mainly EVp38 and EVp41s in the Ethics, two analogies in letter 32 and part 2 of his Short Treatise, namely his preface, chapter 23 and Appendix 2. The research topic of life and death in Spinoza has grown out of my 2015 abstract ‘Spinoza on how to live well and die well’ which was written with the time limit and word count restrictions of a presentation in mind and bears the kernel of my stance on this research topic. Although quite broad, I started my research on this topic with a focus on Spinoza’s two main texts, the Ethics and the TTP, which form the backbone of the abstract. This abstract then became the basis for the book outline for this blog ebook. As a book outline rather than a paper abstract, I then had the time and word count to develop my research in new and exciting ways as I discovered more textual material within and across Spinoza’s writings on life and death than I initially expected to find.

So, over the years, I have enjoyed both expanding the scope of my research to include lesser-researched Spinoza texts, as well as narrowing my focus, to flesh out very specific passages. In this way, I hope to further Spinoza scholarship. 

I have discovered that Spinoza’s early writings are far more mature and decisive than I anticipated because they are often depicted in Spinozian scholarship as lacking the maturity and conviction of his later writings. I maintain they are very similar to his later writings, indeed, I can hear the same voice and fundamental notions across all of Spinoza’s works so do not interpret him as prone to changing his mind or having distinct periods in his philosophy. Thus, I think the earlier works provide important insight into his main works and are a useful interpretative aid for understanding apparently obscure passages in Spinoza, be it in his later works or letters. I have the impression that Spinoza is perhaps assuming that his readers are somewhat familiar with many of the concepts and arguments in his earlier works before they read his latter works. Scholarship sometimes looks upon his Short Treatise as merely an abandoned draft which was rewritten as the Ethics. However, the Short Treatise feels like a very complete and well-thought out and organised, strongly argued treatise which is both valuable as a text in its own right as well as shedding light on his other texts.

In this volume, I have furthered my Analytic-Jewish interpretation of Spinoza. I have drawn on analytic and logic philosophical skills to show the underpinnings, structure and logical progression of ideas in Spinoza’s thought, untangling them from his continuous passages of writing and setting them out in logical form from premises to conclusion.

Additionally, I have discussed Spinoza’s scientifically and mathematically analytical, logical thinking. Previously, in part 3 of volume 1, I showed how science, including Darwin and contemporary genome theory, helps to uncover another layer of meaning to Spinoza’s conatus doctrine. I argue, in both volume 1 and 2, that scientific analysis suits Spinoza’s way of thinking about humans, the world and God. In part 1 of this volume, I explore the relevance of anatomical, biological and psychological theory for understanding Spinoza’s philosophy. In part 2 of this volume, I show how physics and maths have a bearing on interpreting key concepts in Spinoza’s philosophy. Being a scientist and philosopher was not as potentially problematic or contradictory for Jewish philosophers as it was for Christian philosophers and scientists, who faced religious restrictions on the content of their writings for fear that their science would disprove the existence and omnipotence of God. Apart from the famous example of Maimonides (12^th century) who had no problems being a philosopher as well as a doctor and astronomer, there were other Jewish philosophers who were also scientists, such as Abraham Bar Hiyya Ha-nasi (11^th – 12^th century) who was an astrologer, astronomer and mathematician as well as a philosopher and wrote both scientific and philosophical treatises. Likewise, Spinoza not only wrote philosophical works, but it is often forgotten that he also wrote two treatises on physics and maths, ‘Algebraic Calculation of the Rainbow’ and ‘Calculation of Chances’. Spinoza even admits in chapter 9 of his Short Treatise that the topic of motion “more properly belongs to a treatise on Natural Science rather than here”[i]. Although he consequently lays it to one side in this chapter, he goes on to expand on motion and rest when writing about the life, death and the immortality of the soul later in the Short Treatise. So despite being initially tentative about using scientific vocabulary and concepts, simplifying motion to just signifying an “Effect created immediately by God”[ii], he ends up making use of scientific and mathematical language (ratio and proportions of motion and rest) both in the Short Treatise and the Ethics, which even includes diagrams. Perhaps Spinoza did not wish to alienate non-scientific readers of his works so attempted to use natural science in an accessible way. However, I suggest that, by filling in the scientific definitions and concepts assumed by Spinoza in his works draws out a deeper understanding of his philosophical concepts, makes his abstract notions more accessible and helps his readers see consistencies in his thought. This is not an easy task, given that Spinoza is highly knowledgeable about a broad range of natural sciences. He took an interest in chemistry experiments, anatomy and biology (in his letters) and was also an expert in physics and maths, which included plans for telescopes so he must have had a profound understanding of astronomy.

I have also furthered the Jewish aspect of my Analytic-Jewish interpretation by situating Spinoza’s account of the immortality of the soul within Jewish philosophy and finding that his philosophy fits in very well alongside theirs. In his commentary, Wolf briefly mentions some fascinating parallels where Spinoza is in agreement with Maimonides and Crescas[iii]. However, I have aimed to add to this by showing how Spinoza’s philosophical accounts of life, death, the soul and immortality are embedded in Jewish thought and Orthodox Judaism. I expanded on this to illustrate how I interpret Spinoza as accounting for both personal and collective immortality.  In life, we hold in tension being an unique individual as well as being part of a collective society, so Spinoza continues this combination of the individual and the collective into his philosophy of death and immortality.  

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[i] Benedict de Spinoza, Spinoza’s Short Treatise on God, Man & His Wellbeing, ed. and trans. Abraham Wolf (London: A. & C. Black, 1910), 57, https://archive.org/details/spinozasshorttre00spinuoft/page/n7.

[ii] Spinoza, 57.

[iii] Abraham Wolf, ‘Commentary’, in Spinoza’s Short Treatise on God, Man & His Well-Being (London, UK: A. & C. Black, 1910), 165–240, https://archive.org/details/spinozasshorttre00spinuoft/page/n7.

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