Today Is Spinoza’s Birthday!

Spinoza was born 387 years ago today (in 1632). This year, rather aptly, it falls just 3 days after World Philosophy Day! Hence, over the next few blog posts, I’d like to flesh out my almost decade long journey reading Spinoza’s philosophy by filling in some of the contextual background to my research on him.

Just as I’m putting my research into context, I also find the same is true with all textual interpretations. Thus, only looking at

1)      either the content of a book (the properties of the text)

2)      or the contextual, historical, sociological, political, biographical framework

restricts one’s perspective and only tells half the story. These two approaches are not mutually exclusive. One does not have to choose between them. To get the full philosophical picture, one needs to be capable of balancing both 1) which involves an analysis of the properties of a philosophical argument together with 2) illuminating the context within which it was written. Being able to situate a philosopher and their texts is important no matter what style the text is written in, how the arguments are demonstrated, or which subject, be it philosophy, maths, physics  or literature because nobody creates or thinks something in a vacuum, be it artwork, music or books.

For instance, although one can read Euclid and follow his train of mathematical thought logically from beginning to end, it does not follow that one should ignore the context of his writings. It is still important to know that the Euclidean mathematical system is not the only one which exists. This fact could not be learnt from just reading his writings and looking at the internal properties of his text, demonstrations and arguments which he provides. Yet one would be ignorant if one were not able to see Euclid’s geometry in the context of non-Euclidean geometries developed in the 19^th century. Thus, the era within which the reader is reading the text is relevant and impacts on their understanding of it. Euclid’s geometry was the only geometric system from Plato’s time, when Euclid wrote it, before being questioned, centuries later, in the 16^th century but no alternative was found until the 19^th century. Hence, if reading Euclid in Spinoza’s era in the 17^th century, one would rightly assume it is the only geometric system that exists and one would require less background contextual knowledge to understand Euclid’s arguments. However, when reading Euclid in the 21^st century, it is valuable to read books about him which provide historical, biographical and contextual knowledge in order to fully appreciate Euclid’s writings.

I’ve found Berlinski’s excellent book ‘The King of Infinite Space – Euclid and his Elements’ crucial for grasping Euclidean mathematics because he begins by placing Euclid within an historical context and relates his thought to others to show an on-going discussion (ranging from mathematicians to physicists and logicians) rather than just abstractly discussing his mathematics. Berlinski’s book has also helped me think about Spinoza’s Ethics because he eventually re-wrote it in the style of Euclidean demonstrations after his fellow Dutch philosophers suggested it to him. (This would make Spinoza’s Ethics ground-breaking because it would be the first major philosophical treatise which would use the geometrical method fully and throughout, unlike Descartes, who only extracted the analytical aspect of the method.) Spinoza took up their suggestion partly because his time was being consumed by constantly having to explain what he meant in his manuscripts of the Ethics.

Spinoza’s earlier versions of the Ethics and his Short Treatise, which became the basis for his Ethics, were all written in his more usual Rationalist philosophical style. Hence, unlike some current thought, I think Spinoza’s Ethics should not be approached or interpreted differently from his other works simply because his latter drafts of it were transposed into a geometric form. The kernel of his body of thought remains the same whether demonstrated geometrically or not. Had he wished to or perhaps lived long enough, he may have rewritten many of his works (for example, his TP, where he states he uses a mathematical approach) by transposing his arguments into the geometrical method. Why? Because the aim of a Euclidean geometric method is that it provides such a tight, logical framework that the demonstrations for arguments become indisputable, thereby guaranteeing true, certain knowledge. Therefore, I think, to claim that his Ethics contains flaws, mistakes or contradictions is in itself mistaken, because Spinoza’s methodology is fool proof.

I interpret all of Spinoza’s works as pure philosophy texts. This seems obvious, however, I am often surprised by how his treatises are divided up into disconnected parts which require completely different approaches, rather than seeing them as a whole united body of philosophy.

·         His political works are lumped together on one side, although even so, the TP is liable to be misplaced under political science and his TTP under theology.

·         His Short Treatise is arrogantly dismissed as somehow irrelevant to all his other works. This is especially strange considering the Short Treatise manuscript may be a draft on which he built his Ethics. I have written about his Short Treatise in my volume 2. It is highly relevant to his metaphysics and pivotal to understanding his concept of the soul and immortality and matches up with his Ethics. Perhaps the Short Treatise is merely an inconvenient text for those who wish to claim that his Ethics stands apart from the rest of his work so needs a different interpretative approach. It is also an inopportune text for those who wish to portray Spinoza as an atheist, although, thankfully, this point of view is less prevalent over the last few years!

·   The Ethics is sometimes characterised as an abstract, incomprehensible, mathematical work requiring no further contextual, historical, sociological, political, psychological, biographical backdrop. This, I think, leads to misunderstanding the role of the Ethics in Spinoza’s philosophy so can result in misinterpreting it.      

·            Spinoza’s Emendation of the Intellect plays a relatively minor role in scholarship.

·       Spinoza’s book on Descartes was a rushed job written in roughly 2 weeks at the request of a friend. This text I see as a hybrid – the main text is a teaching aid for those learning Descartes. Only the appendix is relevant to what Spinoza thought so only this short section counts in his body of philosophy.

·       Spinoza’s Hebrew Grammar book, which was unfinished at the time of his death, was also maybe partly to teach the language to underpin his philosophy. We see Hebrew words in his original texts which he used to support his arguments. It may also be because, as a Jew, he considered Hebrew to be a sacred language so naturally was lovingly attached to it.         

·       Spinoza is even dismissed as being a talented scientist, physicist, mathematician despite designing cutting edge lenses, microscopes and telescopes, as well as using his expert knowledge of mathematical physics to help build the largest European telescope. He was not just a humble lens grinder! Indeed, posthumously, his calculations and grinding dishes were used to make the lens for this largest European telescope. As I mention in my volume 2 on Spinoza, chapter 10, he wrote two treatises on physics and maths, ‘Algebraic Calculation of the Rainbow’ and ‘Calculation of Chances’. This shows he was a scientific, mathematical genius, in addition to being a philosophical genius. So Spinoza is clearly strong at natural philosophy (philosophy of science, which both philosophers and scientists wrote about in the Early Modern period), logic, and forming accurate arguments. If we fail to understand Spinoza’s philosophy at times, it’s our fault, not his! I think it’s important not to mistake critical thinking as equating to purely negative criticism. On the contrary, critical thinking does not cease to be critical just because it is positive. Indeed, one learns more from positive criticism than negative criticism.