The First Modern Jew

The First Modern Jew
Author: Daniel B. Schwartz
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 291
Release: 2013-12-01
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 069116214X

Pioneering biblical critic, theorist of democracy, and legendary conflater of God and nature, Jewish philosopher Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) was excommunicated by the Sephardic Jews of Amsterdam in 1656 for his "horrible heresies" and "monstrous deeds." Yet, over the past three centuries, Spinoza's rupture with traditional Jewish beliefs and practices has elevated him to a prominent place in genealogies of Jewish modernity. The First Modern Jew provides a riveting look at how Spinoza went from being one of Judaism's most notorious outcasts to one of its most celebrated, if still highly controversial, cultural icons, and a powerful and protean symbol of the first modern secular Jew. Ranging from Amsterdam to Palestine and back again to Europe, the book chronicles Spinoza's posthumous odyssey from marginalized heretic to hero, the exemplar of a whole host of Jewish identities, including cosmopolitan, nationalist, reformist, and rejectionist. Daniel Schwartz shows that in fashioning Spinoza into "the first modern Jew," generations of Jewish intellectuals--German liberals, East European maskilim, secular Zionists, and Yiddishists--have projected their own dilemmas of identity onto him, reshaping the Amsterdam thinker in their own image. The many afterlives of Spinoza are a kind of looking glass into the struggles of Jewish writers over where to draw the boundaries of Jewishness and whether a secular Jewish identity is indeed possible. Cumulatively, these afterlives offer a kaleidoscopic view of modern Jewish cultureand a vivid history of an obsession with Spinoza that continues to this day.

Spinoza In English, A Bibliography

Spinoza In English, A Bibliography
Author: Wayne Boucher
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 364
Release: 1999-06-15
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9781855066120

Spinoza in English,/i is the first bibliography to document the entire 300-year record of books, monographs, dissertations and articles in English on Benedict Spinoza, as well as all translations of his works into English. Arranged alphabetically by author or editor, and internally cross-referenced in the case of anthologies and 'replies', this bibliography cites its own sources where appropriate and, in many cases, provides details on how to obtain out-of-print titles and unpublished dissertations. Additionally, it restores or corrects a good deal of earlier bibliographic detail and, beginning with titles from the mid-1800s, presents the citations in a uniform style. This second edition adds hundreds of citations, including dozens of titles hitherto overlooked, thus bringing the total to nearly 2700 on the main level (with hundreds of secondary references to later editions and reprints). It also provides an index and, occasionally, an abstract when the author's title inadequately describes the contents. As the only source of its kind, this bibliography is an indispensable reference tool for research libraries and individual scholars concerned with the life and works of Spinoza. Wayne Boucher's introduction is augmented by a preface by Professor Manfred Walther. --the most complete bibliography of works in English on Spinoza --enlarged, corrected and improved from first edition with numbered entries --uniquely comprehensive, current and authoritative --numbered entries and subject/title index for easy reference

Spinoza on Nature

Spinoza on Nature
Author: James Collins
Publisher:
Total Pages: 362
Release: 1984
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN:

Collins' method is to make an internal textual study of Spinoza's doctrine on nature with emphasis on his general model of nature that underlies and gov­erns his arguments on particular issues. Separate chapters are devoted to each of his early writings. Two chapters discuss the Ethics. Collins concludes with a uni­fying view of Spinoza's perspective on nature that has a bearing upon many contemporary philosophical issues.

Spinoza

Spinoza
Author: Michael Della Rocca
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 447
Release: 2008-06-30
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1134456360

Renowned for his metaphysics, Spinoza made significant contributions to understanding the human mind, the emotions, moral philosophy, and political philosophy. Beginning with an overview of Spinoza's life, Michael Della Rocca carefully unpacks and explains Spinoza's philosophy: his metaphysics of substance and argument at the center of his whole system that God is the sole independent substance; his account of the human mind and its relation to the body; his theory that human beings tend towards self-preservation and his most famous work, the Ethics, including the problem of free will; and his writings on the state, religion and scripture. Della Rocca concludes with a chapter on Spinoza's legacy and how modern philosophers, Hume, Hegel, and Nietzsche, responded to Spinoza's challenge. Ideal for those coming to Spinoza for the first time as well as those already acquainted with his thought, Spinoza is essential reading for anyone studying philosophy.

Spinoza: Theological-Political Treatise

Spinoza: Theological-Political Treatise
Author: Jonathan Israel
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 451
Release: 2007-05-03
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1139463616

Spinoza's Theological-Political Treatise (1670) is one of the most important philosophical works of the early modern period. In it Spinoza discusses at length the historical circumstances of the composition and transmission of the Bible, demonstrating the fallibility of both its authors and its interpreters. He argues that free enquiry is not only consistent with the security and prosperity of a state but actually essential to them, and that such freedom flourishes best in a democratic and republican state in which individuals are left free while religious organizations are subordinated to the secular power. His Treatise has profoundly influenced the subsequent history of political thought, Enlightenment 'clandestine' or radical philosophy, Bible hermeneutics, and textual criticism more generally. It is presented here in a translation of great clarity and accuracy by Michael Silverthorne and Jonathan Israel, with a substantial historical and philosophical introduction by Jonathan Israel.

The Collected Works of Spinoza, Volume II

The Collected Works of Spinoza, Volume II
Author: Benedictus de Spinoza
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 793
Release: 2016-06-13
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1400873606

The second and final volume of the most authoritative English-language edition of Spinoza's writings The Collected Works of Spinoza provides, for the first time in English, a truly satisfactory edition of all of Spinoza's writings, with accurate and readable translations, based on the best critical editions of the original-language texts, done by a scholar who has published extensively on the philosopher's work. The centerpiece of this second volume is Spinoza’s Theological-Political Treatise, a landmark work in the history of biblical scholarship, the first argument for democracy by a major philosopher, and a forceful defense of freedom of thought and expression. This work is accompanied by Spinoza’s later correspondence, much of which responds to criticism of the Theological-Political Treatise. The volume also includes his last work, the unfinished Political Treatise, which builds on the foundations of the Theological-Political Treatise to offer plans for the organization of nontyrannical monarchies and aristocracies. The elaborate editorial apparatus—including prefaces, notes, glossary, and indexes—assists the reader in understanding one of the world’s most fascinating, but also most difficult, philosophers. Of particular interest is the glossary-index, which provides extensive commentary on Spinoza’s technical vocabulary. A milestone of scholarship more than forty-five years in the making, The Collected Works of Spinoza is an essential edition for anyone with a serious interest in Spinoza or the history of philosophy.

Spinoza for Our Time

Spinoza for Our Time
Author: Antonio Negri
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 154
Release: 2013-10-01
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0231160461

Antonio Negri, a leading scholar on Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) and his contemporary legacy, offers a straightforward explanation of the philosopher’s elaborate arguments and a persuasive case for his ongoing utility. Responding to a resurgent interest in Spinoza’s thought and its potential application to contemporary global issues, Negri demonstrates the thinker’s special value to politics, philosophy, and a number of related disciplines. Negri’s work is both a return to and advancement of his initial affirmation of Spinozian thought in The Savage Anomaly. He further defends his understanding of the philosopher as a proto-postmodernist, or a thinker who is just now, with the advent of the postmodern, becoming contemporary. Negri also deeply connects Spinoza’s theories to recent trends in political philosophy, particularly the reengagement with Carl Schmitt’s “political theology,” and the history of philosophy, including the argument that Spinoza belongs to a “radical enlightenment.” By positioning Spinoza as a contemporary, revolutionary intellectual, Negri addresses and effectively defeats critiques by Derrida, Badiou, and Agamben.

Spinoza

Spinoza
Author: Gilles Deleuze
Publisher: City Lights Books
Total Pages: 148
Release: 1988-04
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780872862180

Spinoza's theoretical philosophy is one of the most radical attempts to construct a pure ontology with a single infinite substance. This book, which presents Spinoza's main ideas in dictionary form, has as its subject the opposition between ethics and morality, and the link between ethical and ontological propositions. His ethics is an ethology, rather than a moral science. Attention has been drawn to Spinoza by deep ecologists such as Arne Naess, the Norwegian philosopher; and this reading of Spinoza by Deleuze lends itself to a radical ecological ethic. As Robert Hurley says in his introduction, "Deleuze opens us to the idea that the elements of the different individuals we compose may be nonhuman within us. One wonders, finally, whether Man might be defined as a territory, a set of boundaries, a limit on existence." Gilles Deleuze, known for his inquiries into desire, language, politics, and power, finds a kinship between Spinoza and Nietzsche. He writes, ""Spinoza did not believe in hope or even in courage; he believed only in joy and in vision . . . he more than any other gave me the feeling of a gust of air from behind each time I read him, of a witch's broom that he makes one mount. Gilles Deleuze was a professor of philosophy at the University of Paris at Vincennes. Robert Hurley is the translator of Michel Foucault's History of Sexuality.

Spinoza and the Sciences

Spinoza and the Sciences
Author: Marjorie Grene
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 347
Release: 2012-12-06
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9400945140

Prefatory Explanation It must be remarked at once that I am 'editor' of this volume only in that I had the honor of presiding at the symposium on Spinoza and the Sciences at which a number of these papers were presented (exceptions are those by Hans Jonas, Richard Popkin, Joe VanZandt and our four European contributors), in that I have given some editorial advice on details of some of the papers, including translations, and finally, in that my name appears on the cover. The choice of speakers, and of addi tional contributors, is entirely due to Robert Cohen and Debra Nails; and nearly all the burden of readying the manuscript for the press has been borne by the latter. In the introduction to another anthology on Spinoza I opened my remarks by quoting a statement of Sir Stuart Hampshire about inter pretations of Spinoza's chief work: All these masks have been fitted on him and each of them does to some extent fit. But they remain masks, not the living face. They do not show the moving tensions and unresolved conflicts in Spinoza's Ethics. (Hampshire, 1973, p. 297) The double theme of 'moving tensions' and 'unresolved conflicts' seems even more appropriate to the present volume. What is Spinoza's rela tion to the sciences? The answers are many, and they criss-cross one another in a number of complicated ways.