Monday, October 17

Baruch Spinoza

 

Introduction 

Baruch Spinoza was born in 1632 in Amsterdam, whose Jewish parents had to flee Portugal to escape the persecution of the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions. 

His family landed in the Netherlands, where Spinoza was born and raised in a Portuguese-Jewish community, Spinoza attended a Talmud Torah school in Amsterdam.

Hence, he grew up as part of a typical Jewish family to observe the usual religious ceremonies. However in maturity, as an outstanding student and later rational philosopher, he was to query the tenants of the stories in the Old Testament which he regarded as barriers to understanding given the use of allegory and metaphorical references.

Furthermore, he rejected the literal translation of the ancient texts and the idea of miracles, believing their introduction was purely in order that they may have authority over the masses to whom they were directed. 

Spinoza’s God

Spinoza’s God as in nature, he held was perfect, determined, infinite and timeless. In other words the infinite ‘God or Nature’ is all there is of which we are part. He believed our interaction with such an infinite being is manifest in an extension of this and in thought as representations of the expressions of this reality. He believed there are many other representations of this reality of which we are not privy, 

Spinoza excommunicated.  

Consequently, at the age of 24, in consideration of his views, he was excommunicated from the Jewish church and thereafter wrote under different pseudonyms. In his earlier works he set out his proposition one can only be happy in the attainment of knowledge in his principal work entitled “Ethics”, which was based on rational thought. 

Reconciliation and the true nature of things.   

Harking back to the home of western philosophy and to the idea of a love of wisdom by the ancient Greeks, Spinoza attempted to rule out the idea of a division between the body and spirit to provide an alternative rational conclusion the two are inextricably linked. You will recall that Plato, when talking about living the good life, equated happiness to living a virtuous life. That presupposes one ensures the substance of our soulful element gains ascendancy over our instinctive bodily reactions. Plato thought one could only live a virtuous life if one gained knowledge of the virtues. Spinoza on the other hand, as the first pragmatic philosopher, put forward his reconciliation to gain an understanding of the true natural order of things in the universe, to accept our part in it, and thereafter to gain blessedness 

Hence, Spinoza sought to replace the then new found mechanistic account of the world at that time with his idea of a natural order of things, to reconcile Plato’s quest for virtue and resultant happiness with the attainment of blessedness through increased knowledge.

Obtaining blessedness 

His explanation to obtain blessedness was to view the universe in different ways - one valid way as in purely the observer of matter and the other as in the descriptions of the mind and their extensions by way of thought.  According to Spinoza both are equally valid. 

Before Spinoza, existence was seen as an ongoing battle to choose your side. If one was feeling bad or things weren’t going very well then you were out of sync with the GODs. You needed to change your behaviour, to get on the right side of the gods. But the question is, if the universe was made up of just atoms and void, then surely such a hope of any blessedness was misplaced. Rather, Spinoza posited a choice was unnecessary as the natural order of things could be understood or expressed in a multitude of different ways. But humanity was only privy to an understanding in terms of thought and its extensions. The more we understand about the nature of things the closer we get to GOD and the blessedness that ensues such a quest. He set out to rally against the ascetics to argue the greater the involvement of an active body the more agile and penetrating the mind can be. So that the mind and body interact to underpin the accent of the mind towards GOD. 

But we may want to question the validity of Spinoza’s reconciliation of equal notions of reality.  One might rather think of various descriptions of things rather than different versions of a reality that might lie beyond our grasp. 

Hostility towards the use of Metaphor, Analogy and reliance on ceremonies 

Spinoza’s hostility to metaphor and artifice was made clear in his Theological-Political Treatise. 

His work paved the way towards the ecumenical movement that concluded religious differences relate to varied cultural situations and their imaginations to break free from fundamentalism. He attempts a translation of the ancient texts based on intellect. Whilst one might agree that the intellectual means of translation is preferred there also appears to be equally a place for metaphor and allegory in talking about that which Is ineffable- expressed in the age old stories. 

Similarly, Spinoza was not inclined towards prophesy or the temporary prosperity arising from ceremonies which he contended are no aid to blessedness. For Spinoza, the God or Nature was able to be understood as in the whole rather than in part.

Selected quotes  

The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free.” 

"The more you struggle to live, the less you live. Give up the notion that you must be sure of what you are doing. Instead, surrender to what is real within you, for that alone is sure....you are above everything distressing.” 

“I do not know how to teach philosophy without becoming a disturbance of the peace.” 

“No matter how thin you slice it, there will always be two sides.” 

“If you want the present to be different from the past, study the past.” 

“I have made a ceaseless effort not to ridicule, not to bewail, not to scorn human actions, but to understand them.” 

“The more clearly you understand yourself and your emotions, the more you become a lover of what is.” 

“Peace is not the absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition of benevolence, confidence, and justice.” 

Religious - miracles 

“Those who wish to seek out the cause of miracles and to understand the things of nature as philosophers, and not to stare at them in astonishment like fools, are soon considered heretical and impious, and proclaimed as such by those whom the mob adores as the interpreters of nature and the gods. For these men know that, once ignorance is put aside, that wonderment would be taken away, which is the only means by which their authority is preserved.” 

“Do not weep. Do not wax indignant. Understand.” 

“When a man is prey to his emotions, he is not his own master.” 

“I would warn you that I do not attribute to nature either beauty or deformity, order or confusion. Only in relation to our imagination can things be called beautiful or ugly, well-ordered or confused.” 

“I have striven not to laugh at human actions, not to weep at them, nor to hate them, but to understand them.” 

“There is no hope unmingled with fear, and no fear unmingled with hope.” 

 “Emotion, which is suffering, ceases to be suffering as soon as we form a clear and precise picture of It.” 

“The endeavour to understand is the first and only basis of virtue.” 

“No to laugh, not to lament, not to detest, but to understand.” 

“Further conceive, I beg, that a stone, while continuing in motion, should be capable of thinking and knowing, that it is endeavouring, as far as it can, to continue to move. Such a stone, being conscious merely of its own endeavour and not at all indifferent, would believe itself to be completely free, and would think that it continued in motion solely because of its own wish. This is that human freedom, which all boast that they possess, and which consists solely in the fact, that men are conscious of their own desire, but are ignorant of the causes whereby that desire has been determined.” 

“Pride is pleasure arising from a man's thinking too highly of himself.” 

“The greatest secret of monarchic rule...is to keep men deceived and to cloak in the specious name of religion the fear by which they must be checked, so that they will fight for slavery as they would for salvation, and will think it not shameful, but a most honourable achievement, to give their life and blood that one man may have a ground for boasting.” 

“There can be no hope without fear, and no fear without hope.” s

“Happiness is not the reward of virtue, but is virtue itself; nor do we delight in happiness because we restrain from our lusts; but on the contrary, because we delight in it, therefore we are able to restrain them.” 

“Of all the things that are beyond my power, I value nothing more highly than to be allowed the honor of entering into bonds of friendship with people who sincerely love truth. For, of things beyond our power, I believe there is nothing in the world which we can love with tranquillity except such men.” 

“In practical life we are compelled to follow what is most probable; in speculative thought we are compelled to follow truth.” 

“Better that right counsels be known to enemies than that the evil secrets of tyrants should be concealed from the citizens. Those who can secretly treat the affairs of a nation have it absolutely under their authority; and as they plot against the enemy in time of war, so do they against the citizens in time of peace.” 

Conclusion ----- A pragmatic approach 

The place for metaphor seems to remain firmly entrenched in our ongoing narrative - old ideas yields to the new imaginative ways of presenting metaphors which help to make sense of the world around us just as we continue to tell ourselves stories - what it is to be essentially human?  

What remains a problem, given our imagination, is the continued struggle of finding a way to incorporate social cooperation in the acceptance of alternative ideas about reality? The question is not so much how do we live in accordance with nature - a given, but rather getting humans to live in the same communities with different perspectives as to what’s more important. 

Another way of looking at Spinoza’s idea in seeking blessedness is to say one aspires to a love of truth, to be truthful to one’s self -to embrace the virtues of honesty, courage, sincerity and truth telling that permeate the better side of humanity. 

Questions for discussions- I would be most grateful to receive any responses  

Spinoza’s God as in nature, he held was perfect, determined, infinite and timeless. In other words the infinite ‘God or Nature’ is all there is of which we are part. He believed our interaction with such an infinite being is manifest in an extension of this and in thought as representations of the expressions of this reality. He believed there are many other representations of this reality of which we are not privy, 

Question: What do you make of all of this or do you prefer the idea that GOD is not the universe and reject the idea of naturalism or pantheism inherent in the ideas of Spinoza ?  

Spinoza’s explanation to obtain blessedness was to view the universe in different ways - one valid way as in purely the observer of matter and the other as in the descriptions of the mind and their extensions by way of thought.  According to Spinoza both are equally valid. 

Question: Do you agree with his conclusion? 

Spinoza thought that the more we understand about the nature of things the closer we get to GOD and the blessedness that ensues such a quest. He set out to rally against the ascetics to argue the greater the involvement of an active body the more agile and penetrating the mind can be. So that the mind and body interact to underpin the accent of the mind towards GOD. 

Question: Is this a truth as far as you are concerned or does a simple faith suffice or is it purely a subjective idea by Spinoza. 

Although one might agree that the intellectual means of ancient texts translation is preferred there also appears to be equally a place for metaphor and allegory in talking about that which is ineffable- expressed in the age-old stories. 

Similarly, Spinoza was not inclined to prophesy or the temporary prosperity of ceremonies which he contended are no aid to blessedness. For Spinoza, the God or Nature was able to be understood as in the whole rather than in part.

Question: Do you think there is an ongoing role for the use of metaphor and allegory in the stories we tell one another in modernity? 

Question: Is the idea of the love of truth and the truth telling integral to cooperation and living harmoniously in today's world or is this more of a pipe dream. 


No comments: