Spinoza

Based on archival research, Steven Nadler’s historical biography, Spinoza: A Life (2001), follows the life of Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677), including his exile from Judaism and his path to becoming one of the most controversial philosophers of all time. An accomplished American philosopher, Nadler serves as the William H. Hay II Professor of Philosophy and Evjue-Bascom Professor in Humanities at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Spinoza: A Life won the Koret Jewish Book Award. Nadler has authored several other titles about philosophy and Spinoza.

Despite having a first name that means "Blessed" in Hebrew, Baruch Spinoza is excommunicated from Judaism at the age of twenty-three. He does not believe in the classic idea of God as taught by traditional Christianity and Judaism, but rather espouses the existence of an impersonal, abstract God (a term he used interchangeably with Nature) that contains and orders all things in reality. More than three hundred years after his death, he remains one of the most important yet controversial figures in the history of philosophy, admired by people such as Albert Einstein and Arne Næss.

Because little documentation exists about Spinoza's early life in Amsterdam, Nadler spends the first third of his book exploring the world in which Spinoza grew up. He is born to a Sephardic Jewish family living in a Portuguese Jewish community. The originators of this community fled to Amsterdam following the Portuguese Inquisition in 1536; as such, it has a long history of reproaching those who would mar the community's reputation, risking further outside oppression.



Contrary to popular belief, Spinoza does not train to be a rabbi. In fact, he drops out of his Hebrew education without ever completing the higher grades; this is likely because his family needs his help in their merchant business. However, Spinoza loves learning, and his interests are vast. In his early twenties, he enrolls in the Amsterdam Latin school of Franciscus van den Enden and begins going by Benedictus, the Latin form of his name. Van den Enden is a radical proponent of republican government, and many of the seeds for Spinoza's philosophies were planted during this time.

On July 27, 1656, Spinoza receives a writ of cherem from the Talmud Torah congregation of Amsterdam, effectively excommunicating him from the religion. The document does not specify the exact reason for exile, but cites "abominable heresies" and "monstrous deeds." Likely the punishment is meted out because Spinoza not only holds radical religious views that are in direct conflict with the teachings of Judaism, he also publicly expresses them. After his excommunication, Spinoza sends an "Apology" to the synagogue's elders. Written in Spanish, the letter defends his views and condemns the rabbis for accusing him of misdeeds. Spinoza never returns to using the Hebrew form of his first name.

After completing his study at the Amsterdam Latin school of Franciscus van den Enden, Spinoza becomes a lens grinder, shaping glass for use in telescopes. His work is of such quality that scientists and mathematicians hold him in very high esteem. Spinoza's lens grinding is not to earn a living, however. He is already well supported by grants from friends and admirers. In addition, Spinoza never marries and keeps his expenses small. Instead, Spinoza does the work primarily to have lenses available for his own experiments.



Despite being single and largely cut off from his family following his exile, Spinoza enjoys a rich social life with intelligent connections. Among these are the Collegiants, small sects of freethinking Christians who advocate for a personal interpretation of the scriptures. He also enjoys a long period of correspondence with Henry Oldenburg, the secretary of England’s Royal Society. Spinoza becomes so famous, in fact, that the University of Heidelberg offers him a chair in its philosophy department. He declines, determined never again to bend his ideas to the will of an institution.

Even among his friends and intellectual counterparts, Spinoza's radical ideas are often misunderstood. His famous phrase “Deus sive natura” (“God or nature”) means that everything that happens must happen. There is no free will; the universe is completely deterministic. Spinoza is not an atheist, however. While other philosophers wrestle with the dual nature of the physical and the spiritual, Spinoza combines both into one reality controlled by the impersonal force of God/Nature.

Despite holding on to theories that fly in the face of nearly every other belief of the day, Spinoza detests controversy. In addition to his fear of censorship, this aversion is likely the reason why he publishes relatively little in his lifetime. Descartes' Principles of Philosophy is the only book published under his real name. Other titles are printed anonymously, although sometimes (as in the case of Theological Political Treatise), critics soon discern the source of the work and have it banned by the church. Ethica, Spinoza's most famous work, is not published until after his death at age forty-four of lung disease, likely from a career spent inhaling glass dust while carving lenses.