SPINOZA
by Jim Thomas

First, I'll get to the 'title' very soon, but I felt it best to put poor Spinoza to rest.  I'm not worthy of the position to evaluate or define in detail his works, as he, has touched me, and I'm thankful to him as a brother!

With that said:

In reviewing some of his works and the site I sent you to, I realized that I could not summarize Spinoza better than this:

An excellent summary of Spinoza, from:
http://members.aol.com/Heraklit1/spinoza.htm

Spinoza was born in Amsterdam in 1632, into a family of Jewish emigrants fleeing persecution in Portugal. He was trained in Talmudic scholarship, but his views soon took unconventional directions which the Jewish community - fearing renewed persecution on charges of atheism - tried to discourage.

Spinoza was offered 1000 florins to keep quiet about his views, but refused. At the age of 24, he was summoned before a rabbinical court, and solemnly excommunicated.

Spinoza refused all rewards and honours, and gave away to his sister his share of his father's inheritance - keeping only a bedstead for himself. He earned his living as a humble lens-grinder.  He died, in February 1674, of consumption, probably aggravated by fine glass dust inhaled at his workbench.

His philosophy is summarized in the Ethics, a very abstract work, which openly expresses none of the love of nature that might be expected from someone who identified G-d with nature.

Spinoza's starting point is not nature or the cosmos, but a purely theoretical definition of G-d. The work then proceeds to prove its conclusions by a method modeled on geometry, through rigorous definitions, axioms, propositions and corollaries. No doubt in this way Spinoza hoped to build his philosophy on the solidest rock, but the method, as well as some of the arguments and definitions, are often unconvincing.

Spinoza believed that everything that exists is G-d. However, he did not hold the converse view that G-d is no more than the sum of what exists. G-d had infinite qualities, of which we can perceive only two, thought and extension. Hence G-d must also exist in dimensions far beyond those of the visible world.

Significantly, Spinoza titled his chief work "The Ethics". He derived an ethic by deduction from fundamental principles, and so his ethics were closely linked to his view of "G-d or nature" as everything. The highest good, he asserted, was knowledge of G-d, which was capable of bringing freedom from tyranny by the passions, freedom from fear, resignation to destiny, and true blessedness.

At first Spinoza was reviled as an atheist - and certainly, his G-d is not the conventional Judo-Christian G-d. The philosophers of the enlightenment ridiculed his methods - not without some grounds. The romantics, attracted by his identification of G-d with Nature, rescued him from oblivion.

If you ever read him, you'd know how difficult he was to read and understand in a simple or reduced way. The details in his philosophy were not important to me and I was sad to see him so deeply involved in these issues as to preclude his own pleasurable experiences (or so it seems.)

This is another level where he is a hero to me, since I spent much time trying to come to terms with the unavoidable questions life provides, those most profound!  I retreated from very lengthy discourses and diatribes, unparalleled verbosity to the point where I was questioning whether others were questioning my sanity, ironically in order to retain it.  (Within this introspection I saw the potential for advanced paranoia and confusion). 

Spinoza seemed so very much like me, I wondered if there were some genetic phenomenon in play.  I wondered how many others were like me re: this relatively eccentric thinking.  I'm not at all uncomfortable with it, in fact, the exact opposite! I've gained many pearls of wisdom from the great classical philosophers, but none complete and rewarding as that of Spinoza!  I don't worship him nor anyone for that matter, just as he would not.  I do have reverence for the whole and practice it MOST all the time.  My views are not important, only in that they may trigger someone else's, just as Spinoza did for me.

Self indulgence is not very rewarding in the long run, so enough of me, and even Spinoza.

Jim Thomas

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