Spinoza on Philosophy, Religion, and Politics: The Theologico-Political Treatise

"For a long time Spinoza was regarded, especially by professional philosophers, to be of interest primarily for his metaphysics and epistemology. And I think this was pedagogically motivated. We would teach courses in the history of modern philosophy where Descartes lays the epistemological and metaphysical foundations, Spinoza responds to those and Leibniz responds to Spinoza and so on. So, students, if they read Spinoza, they read the Ethics , but only Parts I and II. They’re left wondering why the hell this book is called ‘Ethics’, when there’s nothing ethical in it. It’s just about God, nature, free will and so on. So, for a long time, Spinoza was not taken seriously as a moral philosopher, or as a political philosopher. In fact, he still isn’t in many ways. Alan Ryan, in his big two-volume history of political philosophy, has nothing to say about Spinoza, not a word. Grayling’s recent book on philosophy in the 17th century barely mentions Spinoza and doesn’t mention Leibniz at all. Terry Irwin, in his two-volume history of ethics, does have a full chapter on Spinoza. For a long time, Spinoza was not taken seriously as a moral philosopher or a political philosopher. Only recently have we started to see real work done on his moral and political philosophy. In particular, the Theological-Political Treatise is rarely taught in philosophy departments. For a long time Spinoza was on the outs generally, especially in Anglo-American philosophy, because metaphysics was on the outs, and as a metaphysician there was this idea that Spinoza could not be taken seriously. Thank you, A.J. Ayer. There has been a new edition of her translation by Clare Carlisle . It’s an interesting question. Eliot was obviously a skilled linguist. She obviously felt some affinity for Spinoza. She did the translation before she wrote any of her novels. Yes. It’s a really interesting question why she did. I don’t know the answer. When it was published, hers was one of very few books dedicated to the Theological-Political Treatise . What really gets discussed by philosophers if they talk about Spinoza is the Ethics . The Theological-Political Treatise is usually addressed in religious studies or Jewish studies courses. Sue James’ book was, along with an earlier book by the Dutch scholar Theo Verbeek, one of the only two books on the Theological-Political Treatise . James’ book is very readable. It covers all the right things and really brings Spinoza back to us as a large-scale systematic thinker and not just somebody who’s doing metaphysics and epistemology between Descartes and Leibniz. Exactly. She’s got great historical sense and sensitivity to the context. I don’t see that she has any controversial axes to grind, but she brings out some of the themes of the work that I think have escaped notice, especially the coherence of the Theological-Political Treatise with the Ethics . In that regard, it is a response to Bennett, and she shows that these are part and parcel of the same project. You can actually see the Ethics itself as a continuation of the Theological-Political Treatise because, by undermining in the Ethics the beliefs in miracles and an immortal soul and offering us this conception of human flourishing and virtue, and happiness, and reason and freedom, there’s a political goal there, which is to undercut superstitious beliefs. And by undercutting superstitious religious beliefs, like the belief in immortality, you are thereby undercutting the political influence that ecclesiastics were exercising in the Dutch Republic at the time. I think there’s some overlap, but I think the Ethics was written for philosophers familiar with the Cartesian vocabulary and the Cartesians’ conceptual schema, like his friends in Amsterdam who were studying it as he was writing it, and also philosophers in the universities and colleges. The Theological-Political Treatise was aimed at a broader audience: liberal theologians and other educated members of Dutch society (for example, the regents that governed the cities), people who would be amenable to its message of toleration and secularism and liberation from religious superstition. It’s a very angry book in some ways, because it was written after one of his friends had been thrown into prison for writing a book with Spinozistic themes. The mistakes his friend made were that, first of all, he wrote it in Dutch, so it was accessible to a broad readership and, second, he put his name on the cover. Support Five Books Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you're enjoying this interview, please support us by donating a small amount . Spinoza wrote the Theological-Political Treatise in Latin and did not put his name on the cover, but it was a response to what he saw as a creeping intolerance in the Dutch Republic and the growing influence of the Dutch Reformed Church in civic and political matters. A long time ago, after getting tenure, and with small children, I decided that, if I was going to squirrel myself away to work on something, it should be a project that gets read by more than 12 other people. And I thought Spinoza was interesting and important enough to try to reach a broad audience. It’s a great pleasure trying to write general nonfiction . I still like to do the occasional academic article, which is more technical. And I think that technical work allows me to write the more general nonfiction books. My new book on Spinoza’s moral philosophy, Think Least of Death: Spinoza on How to Live and How to Die , is essentially taking seriously Spinoza’s moral philosophy and looking at the lessons he offers us on how to deal with our emotions, how to treat other human beings, how to value life, and the proper attitude to take towards death. Yes, but it’s not one of those self-help books , like ‘ How to Live as a Stoic .’ I think those often trivialize and oversimplify. I look at Spinoza’s arguments, but I try to make them accessible and to take him seriously as a philosopher, not as a self-help guru. In the case of death, the question is, ‘how should you approach death?’ If you think there’s something to be hoped for or feared, then you’re going to live your life governed by these irrational emotions. But death is nothing to be feared. Epicurus reportedly said, ‘Where death is, I am not; and where I am, death is not.’ So, you shouldn’t be afraid of being dead, because you’re not going to be there when you’re dead. It shouldn’t be a source of anxiety. The proper attitude wouldn’t be one of hope, either—certainly not. As the title of the book says, you shouldn’t think about it at all, because there’s nothing there. When you’re dead, you’re dead. You should focus on how to improve your life in the here and now, and on the joys that bring us the greatest satisfaction in pursuing the true goods of this life, which is knowledge and understanding. It’s a graphic-book history of philosophy in the 17th century, from Galileo and Descartes to Leibniz and Newton , with plenty of stops in between, but Spinoza gets a whole chapter to himself. My fantastic editor at Princeton University Press, Rob Tempio, said, ‘Would you like to write a history of philosophy of the seventeenth century?’ And I said, ‘No, not really. That would just be a kind of cookbook.’ But, at the time, my son had just graduated from art school, and I thought that it would be really fun to do something together and get his career going. So, I said to Rob, ‘What about a graphic book on philosophy in the seventeenth century?’ And, much to my surprise, he said, ‘Cool!’ It was great fun working with my son. He did most of the work. Nine hundred drawings all by hand and hand-coloured. I think it came out really well—but I’m partisan. No, I think it’s going to be a biography of Descartes. You’ve written popular books on philosophy . What motivated you to start doing it? I couldn’t agree more. It’s very exciting, too, when you get notes from readers who are not academics."