New York Observer

A Philosophical Puzzle:
Who Was = This Guy=20 Spinoza?
Betraying = Spinoza: The=20 Renegade Jew Who Gave Us Modernity, by Rebecca Goldstein. = Schocken,=20 287 pages, $19.95.

By: Hillary Putnam
Date: 12/18/2006 =
Page:=20 25=20

I taught my first philosophy classes in the autumn of 1952, = at=20 Northwestern University. In those days, an instructor was expected = to=20 teach three or four courses a quarter, and thus in the space of a = year I=20 taught nine or 10 different courses, most of which were simply = assigned to=20 me. One was a course on =93The Rationalists,=94 meaning Descartes, = Spinoza and=20 Leibniz (fortunately, I had the benefit of having taken a course = on=20 Spinoza taught by the great Harry Wolfson in 1949). The interest = in=20 Spinoza evoked by being assigned that bit of =93forced labor=94 = stayed with=20 me, as did a certain puzzlement.

At the other end of my teaching career, shortly before I = retired from=20 Harvard University in 2000, I directed a dissertation on Spinoza = by Nancy=20 Levene, later reworked into her book Spinoza=92s Revelation: = Religion,=20 Democracy, and Reason. By then, I was pretty familiar with = Spinoza and=20 Spinoza scholarship, as well as with Spinoza=92s enormous = influence on=20 German philosophers (not only Leibniz, but also Hegel), but the = puzzlement=20 was still with me. The puzzle was that, although I could see how = Spinoza=92s=20 metaphysics was supposed to =93work,=94 I could not fathom Spinoza = the human=20 being, and that meant that the mighty system did not ultimately = make sense=20 to me.

The reason it didn=92t =93make sense=94 is that=97as the = title of his=20 masterwork, Ethics, indicates=97Spinoza didn=92t just = produce a=20 metaphysical system and an epistemology to go with it (although = that=92s=20 what has always attracted the most philosophical attention), but = also an=20 ethical philosophy in the ancient sense. His philosophy attempts = to answer=20 the great three-word question=97How to live?=97in a way = that includes=20 saying what the ideal life would be and what the place of man in = the=20 cosmos is, and not just rules for conduct. And I do not believe = that one=20 can understand what a philosopher who proposes to answer that = three-word=20 question really means if one doesn=92t understand the philosopher = as a=20 fellow man (even if Spinoza would have thought that the latter = sort of=20 understanding is irrelevant).

Rebecca Goldstein=92s Betraying Spinoza speaks = directly to my=20 puzzlement. As she points out, Spinoza was the most private of = men. He=20 wished to be known solely though his philosophical arguments, = which he saw=20 as products of pure reason. He would certainly not have approved = of her=20 project of understanding him in human terms and in Jewish terms, = as a=20 child born in a tolerant country (Holland) whose parents were = survivors of=20 the Spanish Inquisition. That=92s why she calls her book = Betraying=20 Spinoza.

Obviously, this relatively short book (287 pages, including=20 chronology, notes, etc.) is not an =93analysis=94 of Spinoza=92s = system; rather,=20 it is an analysis of Spinoza the man. And Ms. Goldstein, author of = The=20 Mind-Body Problem (1983), brings to that difficult task the = skills of=20 a novelist: the skill, above all, of vividly imagining the life of = another=20 human being, and the skill of being able to evoke that life by her = words.=20 She is also a trained philosopher, one who, like myself, has found = herself=20 teaching a course on =93the seventeenth-century rationalists=94 = and who has=20 felt just the puzzlement I described.

But this is also=97though not obtrusively or irrelevantly = so=97a book=20 about Rebecca Goldstein herself, and of the particularly Jewish = way in=20 which Spinoza entered her life. It initially happened, she tells = us, in a=20 yeshiva high school for girls. Her favorite teacher, Mrs. = Schoenfeld, told=20 the girls the story of Spinoza as =93a cautionary tale of = unbridled human=20 intelligence blindly seeking its own doom.=94 =93He was a = brilliant student,=94=20 Mrs. Schoenfeld told them, =93a boy born with blessings. His very = name, of=20 course, means =91blessed=92 in the holy tongue. Yet this misguided = young man =85=20 who might have used his superior mind to increase our knowledge of = the=20 Torah, had died with the pagan name of Benedictus, = excommunicated=20 and cursed by his own people, condemned and reviled even by = believing=20 Christians. Let the history of the philosopher Spinoza serve as a = warning=20 to you, girls, of the dangers of asking the wrong = questions.=94

Fortunately, Ms. Goldstein did not heed her teacher=92s = warning. What=20 she learned about Spinoza many years later is not unknown to = scholars=20 (although the way she brings out Spinoza=92s brilliance as a = psychologist=20 was new to me). In Spinoza and Other Heretics, for example, = Yirmiyahu Yovel has traced the importance of the =93Marrano=94 = experience (the=20 experience of people like Spinoza=92s parents, of pretending to be = Christians in Spain while secretly practicing Judaism) to = Spinoza=92s=20 development, and Nancy Levene has explained the importance of = Spinoza to=20 democratic thought, from the 17th-century Enlightenment till now. = And I=20 have said that this is a =93short=94 book. But short as it is, it = succeeds in=20 integrating an amazing number of facets of Spinoza=92s life and = thought. And=20 despite its brevity, it also succeeds in selecting and describing = the key=20 political developments, both in the Netherlands as a whole and in = the=20 microcosm of the Jewish community in Amsterdam.

Betraying Spinoza is beautifully crafted. What seem = like=20 separate issues=97Spinoza=92s pioneering advocacy of complete = freedom of=20 thought in religious matters; the turmoil in the Jewish community; = the=20 fateful events in Amsterdam in the closing years of Spinoza=92s = life; the=20 philosophical developments of the 17th century; Spinoza=92s idea = of a=20 philosophical religion utterly purged of all anthropomorphism, = even to the=20 extent of denying that God is a =93person=94 in any sense=97come = together as if=20 by themselves (the sure sign of a fine artist!) to answer my = puzzle: how=20 to understand Spinoza the human being, a man for whom reason = itself was a=20 kind of salvation.

Hilary Putnam is the Cogan University = Professor=20 Emeritus in the Harvard Department of Philosophy.=20