Throughout your philosophic studies you may consider passing by the philosophy
of Baruch De Espinoza, but I beg you, read on, and you will find yourself a
little greater than you were before. Let this video serve only as your introduction
and pass on eagerly to one of the supreme achievements of modern thought “The Ethics.”
Spinoza was born in Amsterdam on November 24th, 1632. The community in which he was brought up
was unique in that it was comprised of Jewish immigrants that had fled from several European
countries to avoid persecution from the Roman Catholic Church. The Jewish people, including
our philosophers Portuguese ancestors, traveled from place to place until Dutch authorities
granted them asylum, this as long as they didn’t cause any scandal or allow any of its members to
cause ripples throughout society. It seems here that it was destined that Spinoza would belong
to the world. And in 1656, at the age of just 24, Spinoza would be excommunicated from the Synagogue
and the world would be better for it. He would join no other creed and live
out the rest of his life alone in the outskirts of Amsterdam. It was here,
under the name Benedict that he would reach out to every corner of the earth and through every
generation. Our philosopher published only two books during his lifetime and due to the threat
from the Roman Catholic Church these publications would be anonymous less he would suffer the same
fate as the tenacious Giordano Bruno. His greatest work “The Ethics” would only appear
after his premature death in 1677, approbation for his achievements would take even longer.
In an attempt to maintain clarity we will cover his work in the order in which he produced them.
He begins by asserting that the language of the bible is deliberately metaphorical
and allegorical. This was in order to capture the imagination of the masses,
since “Scripture was written primarily for an entire people, and secondarily for the whole
human race; consequently its contents must necessarily be adapted, as far as possible,
to the understanding of the masses.” For this very same reason the apostles
resorted to miracle stories. After all The people will always require “a religion phrased in imagery
and haloed with superstition,” and no matter how many are destroyed innumerable others will spring
up anxious to occupy the throne. Spinoza would also pause in perplexity at the utter lack of
compassion toward other creeds displayed by the Roman Catholic Church. “I have often wondered” he
said “that persons who make boast of professing the Christian religion – namely, love, joy,
peace, temperance, and charity to all men – should quarrel with such rancorous animosity, and display
daily toward one another such bitter hatred, that this, rather than the virtues which they profess,
is the readiest criteria of their faith.” We see here why, in an age dominated by the Roman
Catholic Church, Spinoza would publish under an alias. Lastly this work reveals to us, for the
first time, Spinoza’s pantheistic view of god. Allow me to pass by his second book, (Principles
of the Cartesian Philosophy) in order that we may focus on his more original third and fourth.
After the many ills of life that he had experienced, Spinoza set out on a quest
to discover how he may go about attaining “the faculty of enjoying throughout eternity
continual supreme happiness.” And in his third book, the improvement of the intellect,
he reveals to us what he has found. To strive for the utmost development
of our intellect while abstaining from all things superfluous, this, Spinoza thought,
would allow for the better understanding of its forces as they pertain to the order
of nature. True happiness can only come to us through the pursuit of knowledge,
and this pursuit would eventually lead us to the joy of understanding.
Throughout this pursuit he thought the philosopher must also remain a citizen;
he lays out these rules of conduct to follow as we seek this elusive end:
I. To speak in a manner comprehensible to the people, and to do for them all things
that do not prevent us from attaining our ends. II. To enjoy such pleasures as are necessary
for the preservation of health. III. To seek only enough money as
is necessary for the maintenance of our life and health, and to comply with such
customs as are not opposed to what we seek. Before delving into Spinoza’s masterpiece “The
Ethics,” a question that must be explored is “how do we know that our knowledge is knowledge?” How,
with our senses so often deceptive do we determine truth? Spinoza suggests that first
we must distinguish between the various forms of knowledge. In Durant’s “The Story of Philosophy”
he assists us in understanding each of them. I. First there is here say knowledge,
such as when I know the date of my birth. II. Second there is knowledge that comes
about by experience, such as when a physician knows a cure not by any specific formulation
of experimental tests, but by a “general impression” that it has “usually” worked.
III. Third, immediate deduction, or knowledge reached by reasoning,
as when I conclude to the immensity of the sun from seeing that in the case of other
objects distance decreases the apparent size. IV. Forth, the highest form of knowledge,
comes by immediate deduction and direct perception, as when we see at once that 6 is
the missing number in : 2x4 = 2+X, or as when we perceive that the whole is greater than the part.
If you’re familiar with the works of Immanuel Kant then you should be familiar with “a priori”
knowledge; this and that are one in the same. Now that we have, as Spinoza suggested, “Devised a
means for improving and clarifying the intellect,” we are prepared at last to explore “The Ethics.”
When reading the Ethics do not think that by running through it quickly you will
understand it fully, “every part depends on preceding parts, you will not understand any
important section thoroughly till you have read and pondered the whole.” I will not be
able to capture the whole of its grandeur in this video, what I hope is that I am able to expatiate
on its most essential lessons and principles. In an attempt to make the Ethics comprehensible,
Spinoza constructs it in geometrical form, but the result is a work of philosophy that is neither
clear nor comprehensible. He acknowledges the apparent complexity of the ethics, but consoles
and reassures us saying, “Doubtless, the reader will become confused, and will recollect many
things which will bring him to a standstill; therefore I pray him to proceed gently with me
and form no judgement concerning these things until he shall have read all.” Have patience
with this video as well, I assure you we will come to its core principles soon enough, but first we
should clarify bits of Spinoza’s terminology, less we should misunderstand his message.
For the sake of this video we will only define two important terms “substance and Mode.” Think of
substance not as anything material, as we would speak of marble as the substance of a statue,
but instead substance as Spinoza understands it is “that which eternally and unchangeably is,
and of which everything else must be a transient form.” These forms are what Spinoza refers to
as modes; this is “any individual thing or event including you, your body, and even your thoughts.”
He identifies substance with god and nature, “I hold that god is the immanent,
and not the extraneous, cause of all things. I say, all is in god; all lives and moves in god.”
He does not mean to convey to his readers that god and nature are one in the same, but that like
substance god is the underlying reality in which the processes of nature occur. Natural law is but
the eternal commandments of god. This means, to the Roman Catholic Churches abhorrence, that god
was not some omnipresent man ordering countless persecutions, but was instead only nature and
its laws. He would also go on to address our timeless problem of evil. Spinoza asserted
that philosophers often make the mistake of attempting to reconcile evil with an all-powerful
and completely good god, take Leibnitz’s best of all possible worlds as an example.
Good and evil are but anthropocentric delusions, subjective assertions. For the spider to live
the fly has to die; for the fly to live the spider must starve. “Whenever, then,
anything in nature seems to us ridiculous, absurd, or evil, it is because we have but a partial
knowledge of things, and are in the main ignorant of the order and coherence of nature as a whole,
and because we want everything to be arranged according to the dictates of our own reason;
although in fact, what our reason pronounces is bad is not bad as regards the order and
laws of universal nature, but only as regards the laws of our own nature taken separately.”
What of Spinoza’s position on free will? I will let him tell you in his own words.
“There is in the mind no absolute or free will; but the mind is determined in willing this or
that by a cause which is determined in its turn by another cause, and this by another,
and so on to infinity,” we only think that we are free because we are conscious of our desires,
but Spinoza informs us that most are ignorant of the causes that lead us to these desires.
Of all the profound moral philosophies that populate history there are but three that stand
predominant; that of Buddha and Jesus, that of Machiavelli and Nietzsche, and that of Socrates,
Plato, and Aristotle. As Durant so accurately said “it is the distinction of Spinoza that
his ethic unconsciously reconciles these apparently hostile philosophies,
weaves them into a harmonious unity, and gives us in consequence a system of morals which is
the supreme achievement of modern thought.” In his ethic happiness is the ultimate goal,
the apogee of all human conduct. He would define happiness very simply as the presence
of pleasure and the absence of pain. To him pleasure and pain are merely transitions;
pain being ones transition from a greater state of perfection to a lesser, and pleasure being
the antithesis of pain. He would equate power with virtue and thought joy only comes when our power
is increased, “the more a man can preserve his being and seek what is useful to him,
the greater is his virtue.” In the same sense emotions are only good or bad in so far as they
positively or negatively impact our power. So he stands behind a justifiable egoism and lays it
down as his foundation on which virtue is built. He has no use for humility or remorse, but admires
modesty. Unjustifiable pride is also something Spinoza rejects, and for society to overcome
its shortcomings the individuals that populate it must conquer these undesirable emotions. To
do this we must endeavor to understand; passion should come secondary to reason, “instincts are
magnificent as a driving force, but dangerous as guides” – Will Durant. When we decide to adopt a
deterministic philosophic model we also adopt the fortitude to bear up under any circumstance, to
recognize the necessity of all things, and to see them as not harmful nor beneficial. As Nietzsche
would go on to say “that which is necessary does not offend me. Amor Fati is the core of my nature”
Spinoza’s view on religion and immortality are best summarized here with this epilogue.
“Our mind, in so far as it understands, is an external mode of thinking, which is determined
by another mode of thinking, and this one again by another, and so on to infinity;
so that they all constitute at the same time the eternal and infinite intellect of god.” And with
that we should continue on to his fourth and final work Tractatus Politicus “The Political Treatise.”
While this work would remain unfinished due to his untimely death, it would, none the less,
bring clarity to his political views. “Men are not born for citizenship, but
must be made for it,” this is to say that before civilizations were formed individuals lived apart
without conceptions of right and wrong, “Might was Right.” It is only through accepted organization
that the might of the individual becomes the might of the state. The individual, seeing that survival
is much more of a guarantee with mutual aid, concedes his own individual power to the power
of the whole. From here arises the development of morality and conscience, since these things are
necessary for the survival of the whole. Let Spinoza explain, in his own words,
the necessity of social organization; “the last end of the state is not to dominate men,
nor to restrain them by fear; rather it is so to free each man from fear that he may live and act
with full security and without injury to himself or his neighbor. The end of the state, I repeat,
is not to make rational beings into brute beasts and machines. It is to enable their bodies and
their minds to function safely. It is to lead men to live by, and exercise, a free reason; that they
may not waste their strength in hatred, anger and guile, nor act unfairly toward one another. Thus
the end of the state is really liberty.” Freedom of thought and freedom of speech
are essential to maintaining the stability of the state; it is for this reason that Spinoza
expresses a preference for Democracy. In this form of Governance “everyone submits to the
control of authority over his actions, but not over his judgement and reason;
i.e. seeing that all cannot think alike, the voice of the majority has the force of law.”
Democracy does however have its troubles, for instance its propensity for electing demagogues
into office. The only remedy, Spinoza thought, was to limit office to those trained for the cause.
For some time after his death the world would sadly hold him in ill repute,
this was until the German writer Lessing restored his name to its rightful place among
the geniuses of history. All those who endeavor to follow the philosophic path should know him,
it was Hegel who declared that “to be a philosopher one must first be a Spinozist.”
I can only say that Hegel was right, and that I too implore whoever hears
this to discover our gentle philosopher. It would be near impossible to fit so much
matter into this video, less I kept you here another hour. I hope, however, that I was able
to adequately capture the essence of his work. If you enjoyed the video or found it helpful
in any way consider subscribing and turning on the notification bell for more on eastern
and western philosophy, and as always thank you for talking philosophy with me, until next time.