Wednesday Wisdom

WHO?

Baruch Spinoza was born in Amsterdam, Netherlands in 1632 and raised in the Portuguese-Jewish tradition. He was part of the Sephardic Jewish community in Amsterdam which was a group of people forced to leave the Iberian peninsula during the Inquisition. The Inquisition, a series of Catholic Church-led tribunals beginning in the late 14th century, had a profound impact on the Jewish philosopher Baruch Spinoza. This event, along with the general persecution of Jews in Europe, likely contributed to Spinoza's rejection of traditional religious beliefs and his emphasis on reason and individual freedom. Ironically, his philosophical views were considered heretical by both Jewish and Christian religious authorities and he was excommunicated from the Jewish community in Amsterdam at the age of 23.

What he produced

Spinoza's most famous work is "Ethics," is a treatise on metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics. Consisting of five 5 chapters, all presented in Latin, the first chapter is titled "On God". In this chapter, he presents a concept of God that is pantheistic, which means that God and the universe are one and the same and that everything that exists is a part of God. The idea that Spinoza uses the terms "God" and "nature" interchangeably isn't by chance, but is an interpretation of his first principle, that God is not an omnipotent being, but part of the whole universe.

Spinoza's ethical system is based on the idea that the ultimate goal of human life is to achieve a state of "blessedness" which he also called "the intellectual love of God." He believed that this state can be achieved by understanding and living in accordance with the natural world. In Spinoza's view, anything that helped achieve blessedness was good and what took away was evil.

One of the key elements of Spinoza's ethical system is the concept of "adequate ideas," which are ideas that accurately represent the nature of reality. He believed that by gaining a better understanding of the natural world through the pursuit of knowledge, one can achieve a state of blessedness. These were radical ideas for the early 17th century because they extracted morality and knowledge away from the centralized institutions of religion and government in Europe.

This led to a rise in combining religious beliefs centered around rational reasoning. The two schools were Theistic Rationalism and Deism and these philosophies became the cornerstone of the principle of having separation of church and state. Theistic rationalism is a term used to describe a philosophical position that combines elements of theism (the belief in a personal God) with elements of rationalism (the belief that reason is the primary source of knowledge and that the natural world is governed by rational laws). Deism is a belief in the existence of a supreme being, specifically of a creator who does not intervene in the universe. This belief emerged in the 17th and 18th centuries, primarily in France, England, and the American colonies. 

2023 why do we care?

Albert Einstein famously is quoted when asked if he believed in God, to which he responded "I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings.". Many philosophers, scientists, and literary figures regard Spinoza as the most complete of modern philosophers, explaining his reverence for him.

Bertrand Russell, a 20th-century philosopher, and logician had a positive view of the work of Baruch Spinoza, considering him one of the great rationalists of the 17th century. He wrote in his book "History of Western Philosophy": "Spinoza's ethics, like his metaphysics, is one of the noblest and most admirable attempts in the whole history of philosophy to conceive the world rationally as a whole."

Spinoza is certainly admired by scientists and philosophers alike and is often referred to as the First Rational Philosopher of the Enlightenment, but what is his real legacy is what he has contributed to American ideals.

In 1683 English philosopher John Locke fled to Amsterdam for political reasons. At the time, England was experiencing political turmoil, and Locke, who was associated with the Whig party, feared for his safety after being associated with a group that planned the assassination of Charles II. During his 5 years of exile in Amsterdam, he came into contact with a group of educated individuals who taught him the Spinoza philosophies, which greatly influenced his writings upon returning home.

John Locke's "Two Treatises of Government" is a work of political philosophy published in 1689. In the first treatise, Locke critiques the theory of the divine right of kings and argues for the natural rights of individuals and the social contract between the government and the governed. In the second treatise, Locke sets out his own theory of government, in which he argues for the separation of powers and the idea that the government's purpose is to protect the natural rights of its citizens. In his "Letter Concerning Toleration," published in 1689, he argues that the state should not have the power to impose a particular religion on its citizens and that individuals should have the freedom to worship as they choose. These works had a significant influence on the political thought of the time, including the American Revolution and the drafting of the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution.  

Locke and Spinoza were arguably the two greatest influencers on Thomas Jefferson and the Founding Fathers. In the phrase "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," the influence of Locke is vivid. However, the phrase begins "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights". This is the language of Spinoza's universalist philosophy, which makes no reference to revelation, but rather to ethical truths that can be discovered through human reason.  

And now you know...

Philosophy is the art of thinking, the building block of progress that shapes critical thinking across economics, ethics, religion, and science.

METAPHYSICS: Literally, the term metaphysics means ‘beyond the physical.’ Typically, this is the branch that most people think of when they picture philosophy. In metaphysics, the goal is to answer the what and how questions in life. Who are we, and what are time and space?

LOGIC: The study of reasoning. Much like metaphysics, understanding logic helps to understand and appreciate how we perceive the rest of our world. More than that, it provides a foundation for which to build and interpret arguments and analyses.

ETHICS: The study of morality, right and wrong, good and evil. Ethics tackles difficult conversations by adding weight to actions and decisions. Politics takes ethics to a larger scale, applying it to a group (or groups) of people. Political philosophers study political governments, laws, justice, authority, rights, liberty, ethics, and much more.

AESTHETICS: What is beautiful? Philosophers try to understand, qualify, and quantify what makes art what it is. Aesthetics also takes a deeper look at the artwork itself, trying to understand the meaning behind it, both art as a whole and art on an individual level. A question an aesthetics philosopher would seek to address is whether or not beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder.

EPISTEMOLOGY: This is the study and understanding of knowledge. The main question is how do we know? We can question the limitations of logic, how comprehension works, and the ability (or perception) to be certain.