Ursula Goldenbaum

Doing without Free Will: Spinoza and Contemporary Moral Problems introduces Spinoza into the contemporary discussion on free will and on moral problems surrounding this discussion. Traditional Western moral philosophy, for the most part, has been built on the assumption of free will as a special human capacity to freely choose actions without being determined in that choice. This idea draws increasing critique, fueled recently especially by the ever new findings of neuroscience. But how can we develop a moral philosophy without free will? Spinoza faced a similar challenge when writing his Ethics during the rise of modern science and its deterministic model of nature and, for this reason, has much to offer the current discussion. Not only does he provide a foundation for understanding moral responsibility without free will, he also provides an explanation and solution to the classical problem of akrasia precisely because he argues the will is not free. He worked out an entirely new system of moral philosophy that can help resolve the meta-ethical dilemma between absolutism and relativism, showing how moral values evolve naturally within society. Despite denying the traditional God-like power of “free will” Spinoza developed a robust concept of freedom, one that is distinctly human and viable today. His modernity comes to light when we look at his answers to the much discussed questions whether it is possible or even desirable to develop objective instead of reactive attitudes toward our fellow human beings. His answers, perhaps surprisingly, resemble positions held by some contemporary philosophers.

When Jakob Freudenthal published Die Lebensgeschichte Spinozas in 1899, it was the first collection of biographical documents on Spinoza, who was then still seen as something of an ascetic and isolated philosopher. This view had been suggested by Jarig Jelles’ preface to Spinoza’s Opera posthuma. Bayle had also used Spinoza’s unique vita when arguing for his claim that an atheist could live a virtuous life. While this had offered a pretext for reading Spinoza since the end of the seventeenth century, once he was “christianized” by German idealism it became increasingly a way to ignore his critique of religion, as well as his Jewish roots. Our knowledge of Spinoza’s life was further extended by the findings of Carl Gebhardt, who, in a series of articles beginning in 1922, pointed to Spinoza’s association with Jewish heresy in Amsterdam. As a result, Spinoza’s turn to modern science and philosophy was seen as due, to some extent, to his association with Jewish heresy in Amsterdam. The next great step in Spinoza historiography was taken in 1932 by Mordechai Vaz Dias and Willem Tak, who published new biographical material showing us the young merchant Spinoza.Although none of the documents found since have changed our picture of Spinoza’s life as dramatically, they have never been collected in one place. Thanks to Walther’s new edition, we now have almost all of these documents in two large volumes with a rich commentary, the first of which includes the documents and

This article examines the treatment of the concepts of sovereignty and obedience in early modern Europe. It explores the conflicting conceptions of the people's right of resistance to the king as they developed in the political upheavals following the Reformation. It describes Thomas Hobbes and Baruch Spinoza's more differentiated and coherent concept of sovereignty and their discussion of civil rights. It also discusses the understanding of sovereignty and obedience that was developed by Samuel Pufendorf, John Locke, and Christian Wolff based on the radical ideas of Hobbes and Spinoza.

When Jakob Freudenthal published Die Lebensgeschichte Spinozas in 1899, it was the first collection of biographical documents on Spinoza, who was then still seen as something of an ascetic and isolated philosopher. This view had been suggested by Jarig Jelles’ preface to Spinoza’s Opera posthuma. Bayle had also used Spinoza’s unique vita when arguing for his claim that an atheist could live a virtuous life. While this had offered a pretext for reading Spinoza since the end of the seventeenth century, once he was “christianized” by German idealism it became increasingly a way to ignore his critique of religion, as well as his Jewish roots. Our knowledge of Spinoza’s life was further extended by the findings of Carl Gebhardt, who, in a series of articles beginning in 1922, pointed to Spinoza’s association with Jewish heresy in Amsterdam. As a result, Spinoza’s turn to modern science and philosophy was seen as due, to some extent, to his association with Jewish heresy in Amsterdam. The next great step in Spinoza historiography was taken in 1932 by Mordechai Vaz Dias and Willem Tak, who published new biographical material showing us the young merchant Spinoza.Although none of the documents found since have changed our picture of Spinoza’s life as dramatically, they have never been collected in one place. Thanks to Walther’s new edition, we now have almost all of these documents in two large volumes with a rich commentary, the first of which includes the documents and

In light of the growing interest in the relation between Leibniz and Spinoza in recent years, I would like to draw attention to earlier discussions of this topic in Germany and France during the 19th century. Stein and Erdmann argued that Spinoza had an impact on Leibniz. According to their critics Guhrauer, Trendelenburg and Gerhardt in Germany, as well as Foucher de Careil in France, Leibniz studied Spinoza only after the main points of his system were already developed. I will show that the well known thesis about the amazing continuity in Leibniz’ thinking is due to this claim of a general chronological impossibility of any impact of Spinoza on Leibniz. This thesis was then canonized in Mahnke’s book about the young Leibniz and has determined the view of Leibniz since the end of the 19th century. It has only in recent years come to be increasingly challenged.