I wrote a review on Spinoza’s Ethics a while back. I was so
disappointed in it that I didn’t even finish it. This could be considered
unfair and someone made some scathing comments on my inability to comment
adequately or fully understood the philosophy. My disappointment stemmed from
the introduction I had to Spinoza from the author Durant as well many general
statements from a variety of sources. Durant promised that if I gave it my full
attention, I would love the work. Others have agreed. Others also rarely
discuss his dependence on their being a perfect being, called God. Most mention
that he is a pantheist but few deal with how he reconciled his pantheistic
philosophy with his religion.
Bertrand Russell, in History of Western Philosophy is quite
clear about all of this and praises Spinoza for both writing a well thought out
piece like Ethics and for living its precepts. He also notes how unacceptable
his conclusions are for today’s mind. In his time, his biggest problem was
being called an atheist. Many find him interesting for this very reason and I
think fail to see that he wasn’t one because they are too enamored with how he so
confounded the authorities of his day.
That he forwarded not only philosophy, but the human
condition is unquestionable. That he still has something to offer to the
discussion of ethics today is less apparent. That he lived a life free from
argument and handled adversity well is evident. That we should all apply his
philosophy and do the same for no other reason than it worked for him is to
make a choice with no basis. That we should even suffer through a comprehensive
study of his works and attempt to fully embrace his mathematical system of
precepts and corollaries is doubtful. Bertrand flatly states that you
shouldn’t.
Whereas Durant suggests three passes through Ethics, Russell
suggests skimming the ideas Spinoza has about how the mind works and focusing
on his summaries and applications. Spinoza felt that a person could, just by
sitting and thinking about it, come to conclusions about how human beings
function and how the universe is structured. By doing that, you may come up with
something that is internally sound but it will most likely also be wrong. With
the limited science he had to work, Spinoza did an amazing job, but we have
significantly more science available to us today and if you have to choose,
your efforts would be better focused on the more modern.
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