Spinoza and the Rise of LiberalismIn this classic work the author undertakes to show how Spinoza's philosophical ideas, particularly his political ideas, were influenced by his underlying emotional responses to the conflicts of his time. It thus differs form most professional philosophical analyses of the philosophy of Spinoza. The author identifies and discusses three periods in the development of Spinoza's thought and shows how they were reactions to the religious, political and economic developments in the Netherlands at the time. In his first period, Spinoza reacted very strongly to the competitive capitalism of the Amsterdam Jews whose values were "so thoroughly pervaded by an economic ethics that decrees the stock exchange approached in dignity the decrees of God," and of the ruling classes of Amsterdam, and was led out only to give up his business activities but also to throw in his lot with the Utopian groups of the day. In his second period, Spinoza developed serious doubts about the practicality of such idealistic movements and became a "mature political partisan" of Dutch liberal republicanism. The collapse of republicanism and the victory of the royalist party brought further disillusionment. Having become more reserved concerning democratic processes, and having decided that "every form of government could be made consistent with the life of free men," Spinoza devoted his time and efforts to deciding what was essential to any form of government which would make such a life possible. In his carefully crafted introduction to this new edition, Lewis Feuer responds to his critics, and reviews Spinoza's worldview in the light of the work of later scientists sympathetic to this own basic standpoint. He reviews Spinoza's arguments for the ethical and political contributions of the principle of determinism, and examines how these have guided, and at times frustrated, students and scholars of the social and physical sciences who have sought to understand and advance these disciplines. |
From inside the book
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... Freedom To Preserve the Republic . Chapter 5 Philosophic Liberal in a Reactionary Age 1672 - Year of Catastrophe . The Trauma of Democracy : the People as Mob Spinoza Withdraws Again 80 82 87 90 101 108 119 136 . 138 · 139 Why Did the ...
... freedom . He was moved to withdraw to a secluded community of like - minded friends , but he also longed to participate in political action . This young excommunicate gave to the panthe- ist mysticism of the revolutionary movements its ...
... freedom . The materials which I have used have , in large part , been left aside by previous students of Spinoza , but their use , together with what insight we can bring of a historical and psychological kind , will enable us to ...
... freedom is glory . ” B. DE SPINOZA , Tractatus Theologico - Politicus , published in 1670 under a fictitious foreign im- print , and with the author's name suppressed ; Chapter XX , " Freedom of Thought and Speech . " Introduction to ...
... freedom , was on the edge of self - destruction ; Thomas Henry Huxley , for all his defense of determinism , felt that it weighed like a " nightmare .... upon the best minds of these days , " as " the tightening grasp of law impedes ...
Contents
1 | |
2 | |
4 | |
The Economic and Political Structure of Amsterdam Jewry | 5 |
the Cases of Menasseh ben Israel and Uriel Acosta | 9 |
How Spinoza Became a Liberal Republican | 17 |
Spinozas Rejection of Jewish Authority | 22 |
the Commercial Magnates and Rabbis Aboab and Morteira | 24 |
the People as Mob | 138 |
Spinoza Withdraws Again | 139 |
Why Did the Liberal Republic Fall? | 150 |
Theory of a Commercial Aristocracy | 158 |
Constitution for the Dictatorship of the Commercial Aristocracy | 164 |
The Impasse of Authoritarian Liberalism | 175 |
Academic Freedom and Public Education | 179 |
A Republican Conceives the Theory of Limited Monarchy | 182 |
The Trial | 33 |
Revolutionist in Mystic Withdrawal | 38 |
Retreat Among the Religious Communists | 40 |
Spinozas Mennonite Friends | 43 |
Spinozas Meeting With an English Quaker Missionary | 47 |
Spinozas Pantheism and the Radical Thought of the Seventeenth Century | 52 |
Political Scientist in the Cause of Human Liberation | 58 |
The Political Setting | 61 |
The Birth of Liberalism | 65 |
The Calvinist Party in the Netherlands | 69 |
the Geometrical Method in Politics | 76 |
Spinoza and the Mass of Mankind | 80 |
the Guide to Action and the Apotheosis of Acquiescence | 82 |
The Promise and Anguish of Democracy | 87 |
Demonstration of the Futility of Revolution | 90 |
What Is Democracy? | 101 |
Manifesto for Freedom | 108 |
To Preserve the Republic | 119 |
Philosophic Liberal in a Reactionary Age | 136 |
Free Men or Slaves? | 192 |
A Free Mans Philosophy | 198 |
The Ethics of the Free Man as a Critique of the Calvinist Ethics | 200 |
The Mystic Rejection of Libertine Hedonism | 207 |
Precursor to Freud | 210 |
Intellectual Love of God and Intellectual Hatred | 215 |
Spinozas Leap Beyond the Geometrical Method | 221 |
the Failure of the Geometrical Method | 227 |
Spinoza as a Left Cartesian | 229 |
the Discovery of the Plurality of Attributes | 233 |
Spinozas Panpsychism | 235 |
a Masochist Projection | 239 |
the Language of Artisans and Merchants | 242 |
Linguistic Nonsense or Linguistic Transfiguration? | 247 |
Epilogue | 254 |
Notes | 259 |
Index | 309 |