Betraying Spinoza: The Renegade Jew Who Gave Us ModernityPart of the Jewish Encounter series In 1656, Amsterdam’s Jewish community excommunicated Baruch Spinoza, and, at the age of twenty–three, he became the most famous heretic in Judaism. He was already germinating a secularist challenge to religion that would be as radical as it was original. He went on to produce one of the most ambitious systems in the history of Western philosophy, so ahead of its time that scientists today, from string theorists to neurobiologists, count themselves among Spinoza’s progeny. In Betraying Spinoza, Rebecca Goldstein sets out to rediscover the flesh-and-blood man often hidden beneath the veneer of rigorous rationality, and to crack the mystery of the breach between the philosopher and his Jewish past. Goldstein argues that the trauma of the Inquisition’ s persecution of its forced Jewish converts plays itself out in Spinoza’s philosophy. The excommunicated Spinoza, no less than his excommunicators, was responding to Europe’ s first experiment with racial anti-Semitism. Here is a Spinoza both hauntingly emblematic and deeply human, both heretic and hero—a surprisingly contemporary figure ripe for our own uncertain age. |
From inside the book
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Page 9
... truth shall set us free . His methodology for exposing the nature of reality was inspired by one of the strands that the seventeenth century's men of science were weaving into what we now refer to as the scientific method , that ...
... truth shall set us free . His methodology for exposing the nature of reality was inspired by one of the strands that the seventeenth century's men of science were weaving into what we now refer to as the scientific method , that ...
Page 10
... truth . String theorists , in particular , pursue physics almost entirely as a deductive endeavor , letting their mathematics prevail over niggling empirical questions . The spirit motivating them is Spinozism , which sometimes makes ...
... truth . String theorists , in particular , pursue physics almost entirely as a deductive endeavor , letting their mathematics prevail over niggling empirical questions . The spirit motivating them is Spinozism , which sometimes makes ...
Page 15
... truth makes no such distinctions . From its remote point of view , that is , the point of view of truth itself , the sort of differences around which groups construct their social identities and distinguish between " them " and " us ...
... truth makes no such distinctions . From its remote point of view , that is , the point of view of truth itself , the sort of differences around which groups construct their social identities and distinguish between " them " and " us ...
Page 17
... truth of this matter ; and after all of this has been investigated in the presence of the honorable hakhamim they have decided , with their consent , that the said Espinoza should be excommunicated and expelled from the people of Israel ...
... truth of this matter ; and after all of this has been investigated in the presence of the honorable hakhamim they have decided , with their consent , that the said Espinoza should be excommunicated and expelled from the people of Israel ...
Page 19
... truth divinely given to us can be ignored . This is what happens when philosophy takes the place of Torah . Baruch Spinoza had come from a good family of God- fearing Jews , similar to your families , girls - all too similar in certain ...
... truth divinely given to us can be ignored . This is what happens when philosophy takes the place of Torah . Baruch Spinoza had come from a good family of God- fearing Jews , similar to your families , girls - all too similar in certain ...
Contents
3 | |
17 | |
The Project of Escape | 67 |
Identity Crisis | 124 |
Epilogue | 258 |
Chronology | 265 |
Notes | 273 |
Acknowledgments | 285 |
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Aboab argue Baruch Spinoza believe with perfect Benedictus Benedictus Spinoza born Catholic century chief rabbi Christian Church claim conceived continued conversos course death Descartes Deus sive natura divine Dutch Ein Sof emotions essence eternal Ethics excommunication existence experience explain fact father final causes finite friends girls Ha-Shem halakha Hebrew heretic holy Ibid ideas infinite system Inquisition Israel Jan de Witt Jewish Jewish community Jewish identity Jews of Amsterdam Judaism kabbalah kabbalistic kherem knowledge laws Leibniz lives Lurianic Maimonides Marranos means Messiah metaphysics mind Moses Moslem mystical Nachmanides nature noza one's oneself perfect faith personal identity philosopher pleasure Portugal Portuguese proofs publish question Rabbi Morteira rational reality reason religion religious Rijnsburg Sabbatai Zevi salvation Schoenfeld scholar sense Sephardic soul Spain Spanish suffering synagogue Talmud teacher thing thinker thought tion Torah true truth understand Uriel da Costa Voorburg words write yeshiva young