Steven Nadler

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Spinoza, Liberalism, and the Question of Jewish Identity by Steven B. SmithSteven NadlerSteven B. Smith. Spinoza, Liberalism, and the Question of Jewish Identity. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997. Pp. xvii + 270. Cloth, $30.00.Steven B. Smith’s aim in this elegant, well-written book is to restore Spinoza to his important and rightful place in the history of political and religious thought. At the heart of the book is a discussion of the central themes of the Theological-Political Treatise, with a good deal of attention given both to Spinoza’s other writings and to other political thinkers such as Machiavelli and Hobbes, as well as to the immediate historical situation in the mid-seventeenth-century Dutch Republic. But this is more than just a commentary on a work that for a long time has largely (and unjustly) been ignored by philosophers. Smith has a full appreciation of the radical nature of the Treatise, and uses it to bring out what is peculiarly fascinating about Spinoza’s religious and political ideas.According to Smith, it was Spinoza who first made the “Jewish Question”—the problem of how the Jews, after centuries of separation and ghettoization, can be granted admission to, and even assimilation into, the modern polity—central to reflection on the “theological-political problem,” that is, the problem of the place and role of religion in the state. Smith sees Spinoza’s solution to both problems in the process of secularization. Jews must, in order to become an integrated part of modern society, shed their ancient, traditional identity; Judaism has to be transformed from “an authoritative body of revealed law into what today would be called a modern secular identity” (xiii). The allegiance of Jews must be transferred from the Law to laws, from a life of halakhic (or Jewish legal) ritual to a life focussed on nonsectarian, civil and social duties. Particularism—and this would be true of all historical religious identities that will, ideally, be absorbed into the modern state—must be exchanged for universalism.Smith shows how Spinoza’s thinking on the Jewish question is intimately bound up with his particular political philosophy. He argues, in fact, that the Treatise represents the “first and most profound expression of the Jewish-liberal symbiosis that has survived to the present.” For the kind of polity that will make Jewish emancipation possible and foster the emergence of a modern, secular, nonparticularistic Jewish identity is the democratic, liberal state. But if liberalism, through its offer of toleration and participation, nourishes modern Judaism, it is no less true, Smith claims, that it has taken its own sustenance from Jewish traditions. Rabbinic Judaism, with its emphasis on law, has long served as a model for classical liberal thought.Spinoza himself is, in Smith’s eyes (although Smith is certainly not the first to suggest this) the “prototype” of the modern emancipated Jew, liberated from (and even critical of) religious tradition and authority. He is, in other words, the first “secular Jew.” Amsterdam, meanwhile, with its linked traditions of toleration and commerce, is the prototype of the modern, liberal society, one that both offers the conditions for Jewish emancipation and is ever vigilant against interference from ambitious religious authorities. Smith does not really take note of the fact that Dutch society in the Golden Age, with its rigid system of regent families controlling the all-important municipal governments, was far from democratic. And it seems to me misleading to speak of Spinoza as a “secular Jew.” Spinoza seems to have liberated himself—with a [End Page 321] little help from his congregation’s rabbis—not only from an orthodox conformity to Jewish traditions, but from any sense of Jewish identity whatsoever. Perhaps it might be more accurate to call Spinoza the “first secular citizen.”One of the more contentious claims of Smith’s book is his insistence that Spinoza’s Treatise contains an esoteric dimension, an intentionally hidden doctrine that only the most careful readers could ascertain. Part of the defense of this Straussian model is the identification of “deliberate contradictions” in the text. I, for one, do not see any esoteric doctrines in the Treatise; nor...

_ A Companion to Early Modern Philosophy_ is a comprehensive guide to the most significant philosophers and philosophical concepts of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe. Provides a comprehensive guide to all the important modern philosophers and modern philosophical movements. Spans a wide range of philosophical areas and problems, including metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of science, ethics, political philosophy and aesthetics. Written by leading scholars in the field. Represents the most up-to-date research in the history of early modern philosophy. Serves as an excellent supplement to primary readings

In 1969, Edwin Curley published his Spinoza's Metaphysics: An Essay in Interpretation. It was a groundbreaking book in which Curley offers a bold and original account of Spinoza's metaphysical theses. In his highly unorthodox but hugely influential reading, he tries to mitigate some of the ontological oddity of Spinoza's claims that "whatever is, is in God," that "from God infinite things follow in infinite ways," and that mind and body are "one and the same thing," by giving them a strictly causal reading. For subsequent scholars, whether they agreed with Curley or not, there was no avoiding his interpretation.Samuel Newlands seeks likewise to transform our reading of Spinoza in an unconventional—and, as he...

The Oxford Handbook of Descartes and Cartesianism comprises fifty specially written chapters on Rene Descartes and Cartesianism, the dominant paradigm for philosophy and science in the seventeenth century, written by an international group of leading scholars of early modern philosophy. The first part focuses on the various aspects of Descartes's biography and philosophy, with chapters on his epistemology, method, metaphysics, physics, mathematics, moral philosophy, political thought, medical thought, and aesthetics. The chapters of the second part are devoted to the defense, development and modification of Descartes's ideas by later generations of Cartesian philosophers in France, the Netherlands, Italy, and elsewhere. The third and final part considers the opposition to Cartesian philosophy by other philosophers, as well as by civil, ecclesiastic, and academic authorities. This handbook provides an extensive overview of Cartesianism - its doctrines, its legacies and its fortunes - in the period based on the latest research.

The seventeenth-century Dutch-Jewish philosopher, Baruch Spinoza, was expelled from the Amsterdam Portuguese- Jewish community when he was a young man, and in his philosophy he adopts a critical, even hostile attitude toward sectarian religions. Scholars have debated the extent to which Spinoza's thought, despite his own fraught relationship to Judaism, belongs to the history of Jewish philosophy. This review article looks at various trends in scholarship on Spinoza and Judaism, and particularly at recent illuminating work showing the precedents of Spinoza's ideas in medieval Jewish rationalism, especially Maimonides.

Good things come to those who wait. In this case, the waiting period was just a bit shy of the amount of time that the ancient Israelites had to spend in the desert before entering the Promised Land. But now, over thirty years after the appearance of the first volume of Edwin Curley's English edition of the "collected works" of Spinoza—and almost fifty years since the signing of the original contract with Princeton University Press—we have been magnificently rewarded. Volume 2 is, like its predecessor, a major scholarly achievement; something for which we should all be grateful.1 The second volume, which contains the Theological-Political Treatise, the Political Treatise, and the remainder of the correspondence...

Three general accounts of causation stand out in early modern philosophy: Cartesian interactionism, occasionalism, and Leibniz's preestablished harmony. The contributors to this volume examine these theories in their philosophical and historical context. They address them both as a means for answering specific questions regarding causal relations and in their relation to one another, in particular, comparing occasionalism and the preestablished harmony as responses to Descartes's metaphysics and physics and the Cartesian account of causation. Philosophers discussed include Descartes, Gassendi, Malebranche, Arnauld, Leibniz, Bayle, La Forge, and other, less well-known figures.

This is a short book on a small topic with big ramifications. I call it a small topic because Descartes's account of perception occupies only a corner of his overall philosophical project, which is dominated by his concern to provide a solid metaphysical and epistemological grounding for his science. At the same time, Ott's discussion of sense perception in Descartes comes part and parcel with an account of the theory of ideas in Descartes and later Cartesians, a theory of how to read the Meditations, and an interpretation of Descartes's mind-body dualism, including the similarities and differences...

From Pulitzer Prize-finalist Steven Nadler, an engaging guide to what Spinoza can teach us about life’s big questions In 1656, after being excommunicated from Amsterdam’s Portuguese-Jewish community for “abominable heresies” and “monstrous deeds,” the young Baruch Spinoza abandoned his family’s import business to dedicate his life to philosophy. He quickly became notorious across Europe for his views on God, the Bible, and miracles, as well as for his uncompromising defense of free thought. Yet the radicalism of Spinoza’s views has long obscured that his primary reason for turning to philosophy was to answer one of humanity’s most urgent questions: How can we lead a good life and enjoy happiness in a world without a providential God? In Think Least of Death, Pulitzer Prize–finalist Steven Nadler connects Spinoza’s ideas with his life and times to offer a compelling account of how the philosopher can provide a guide to living one’s best life. In the Ethics, Spinoza presents his vision of the ideal human being, the “free person” who, motivated by reason, lives a life of joy devoted to what is most important—improving oneself and others. Untroubled by passions such as hate, greed, and envy, free people treat others with benevolence, justice, and charity. Focusing on the rewards of goodness, they enjoy the pleasures of this world, but in moderation. “The free person thinks least of all of death,” Spinoza writes, “and his wisdom is a meditation not on death but on life." An unmatched introduction to Spinoza’s moral philosophy, Think Least of Death shows how his ideas still provide valuable insights about how to live today.

The world of Spinoza scholarship has seen a number of remarkable achievements in the first two decades of the twenty-first century. There was the publication of an expanded, two-volume edition of Jakob Freudenthal's Die Lebensgeschichte Spinozas by Manfred Walther and Michael Czelinski in 2006, an indispensable resource for documents related to Spinoza's life and writings. Then there was the stunning discovery by Leen Spruit in 2010 of a manuscript of Spinoza's Ethics in the Vatican Library—the first extant copy.Most important of all, however, is the project under the general direction of Pierre-François Moreau and the auspices of the Groupe de Recherches Spinozistes, and published by the...

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Causa sive ratio. La raison de la cause, de Suarez à LeibnizSteven NadlerVincent Carraud. Causa sive ratio. La raison de la cause, de Suarez à Leibniz. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2002. Pp. 573. € 42,00.Over the last two decades, there has been a good deal of outstanding work on the problem of causation in early modern philosophy. Some of it has been devoted to first-order questions: for example, on whether this or that thinker allows for real causal activity among finite substances (and which ones). Other studies, by contrast, have focused on second-order questions, especially the proper formulation of the causal principle itself. Vincent Carraud's book is primarily concerned with second-order questions, although it does have something to say with respect to first-order questions as well. But the depth and breadth of this study makes it much more than just another entry in the ongoing discussion over who thought what about causality among the early moderns. Carraud has a large and complex story to tell: the development of the principle of sufficient reason in the seventeenth century. In particular, he wants to know which philosophers can truly be said to have adopted that principle in its most rigorous formulation. It is both a philosophical and a historical story, and it appears in what is surely one of the most important and interesting books in early modern philosophy in recent years.Carraud directs our attention to a particular phrase that originates with Descartes but then seems to reappear (in various forms) throughout the period: causa sive ratio, "cause or reason." Every term in the phrase is subject to interpretation, of course—'cause,' 'reason' and especially 'or'—and the thesis it embodies (and a philosopher's attitude toward it) is a function of how those terms are to be understood. Carraud's interest is in what this phrase can tell us about how a select group of philosophers (primarily Descartes, Spinoza, Malebranche and Leibniz) regard the relationship between causality and intelligibility.The story begins with Suarez, the late sixteenth-century Scholastic. Suarez's contribution to the rise of the principle of sufficient reason is modest but crucial. He privileges efficient causation over all of the other Aristotelian varieties. While he still grants some explanatory role for formal, material and final causes, they have lost their status as "true" causes for Suarez; in fact, they qualify as causes only by analogy with efficient causation. As Carraud reads Suarez, the ratio causae belongs properly only to the efficient cause, since it alone can provide the reason for the existence and being of a thing.It is Descartes, however, who occupies the central role—both historically and philosophically—in Carraud's story. For it is he who truly effects the ultimate reduction (or, as Carraud puts it, unicité) of causality. In the Cartesian scheme, all but efficient causes are banished. Moreover, the efficient cause of an effect is now defined as the sufficient cause, one that explains why the effect is as it is. "La primauté et l'absoluité de la cause lui viennent de ce qu'elle rend raison de l'effet... Les causes sont d'abord les raisons (suffisantes) des effets, en quoi elles les expliquent" (199-200). Moreover, with Descartes we find a universal application of the principle of causality to all things, even to those that previously either were not regarded as sufficiently real to need a cause (the objective reality of ideas) or were regarded as standing outside the domain of causality altogether (God). It is not that God is a caused being for Descartes. Rather, the important thing is that God is, like all existing things, subject to the causal question. That is, it is legitimate to ask why God does not need a cause. And, in Carraud's account, this is where ratio comes in to its own. God is not a caused being, but there is a reason (in God's immense power) why God does not require a cause. Moreover, the only analogy we have for thinking of the way in which God's immensity forestalls God needing a cause is in terms of efficient causality itself...

Oxford University Press is proud to present the second volume in a new annual series, presenting a selection of the best current work in the history of philosophy. Oxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy focuses on the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries - the extraordinary period of intellectual flourishing that begins, very roughly, with Descartes and his contemporaries and ends with Kant. It will also publish papers on thinkers or movements outside of that framework, provided they are important in illuminating early modern thought. The articles in OSEMP will be of importance to specialists within the discipline, but the editors also intend that they should appeal to a larger audience of philosophers, intellectual historians, and others who are interested in the development of modern thought.

Spinoza's Compendium of Hebrew Grammar has not been well served by scholarship. Serious studies of it are few and far between, and it has generally been ignored by philosophers, including seasoned Spinoza scholars. In fact, I am willing to bet that most people would be surprised to learn that Spinoza wrote a Hebrew grammar.Even Spinoza's closest friends did not know what to make of this work, composed most likely in the early 1670s, just after the publication of the Theological-Political Treatise. When they put together Latin and Dutch editions of his unpublished writings soon after his death in 1677, the inclusion of the Compendium was apparently an afterthought—it...