5 comments about Spinoza: A Life.

1. Emotions are to be avoided, religion is inherently illogical, only rational philosophy can bring you contentment, free-will is a myth; these are the tenants of Spinoza and, yes, the credo of all Vulcans. All these years of trying to get a sense of Spinoza and 3/4 through the book the image of Mr. Spock came floating through the text. Think about it, if Spinoza was successful in changing the metaphysical paradigm of western civilization, we'd all be Vulcans today. Seriously, this is a good book for any serious Spinozists, and puts into context the genius and guts that was Spionza as well as the remarkable period of tollerance which was the golden age of the Dutch Republic. I would suggest reading Yirmiyahu Yovel's, "Spinoza and Other Heretics" for anyone interested in getting a sense of the Pre-converso environment of the Marranos.



2. The book give a great details about the life during the inquisition time in Spain Portugal & Holland..
   Is has a very good view about the terrible consequences of fanatics in the Catholic religion, and show why the world was intellectually almost paralyzed during the dark ages of the religion terror.
   
   However, the book only give small inside about the wonderful philosophical thinking of Spinoza, is more a historic book than a philosophical one..



3. Steven Nadler skillfully guides the reader not only through Spinoza's life but also through the turbulent times of the 17th century Holland. All the more useful ride to enable us to see the courage of an outstanding man, citizen, a brilliant philosopher who taught us that GOD is Nature and us. Great reading!



4. I simply could not relate to this book, a reaction which may or may not reflect an adequate idea.



5. Baruch de Spinoza (1632-1677), an early figure of European Enlightenment like a Netherlands Descartes or Giordano Bruno, - he fought with his publications for the inauguration of modern times, influenced by sober reason - but still caught in the historical context of a society, which was ruled by the dictatorial interests of confessions and government cabals.

   During Spinoza's lifetime (only 45 years) Amsterdam probably has been Europe's most alive, free and multi-cultural large city - the true mother of Nieuw Amsterdam = New York. As freely however, that anyone could philosophize, whatever he liked to sermonize - no, that wasn't possible staying completely unpunished.

   Many of the perforce secret supporters of Spinoza (publishers, booksellers, authors) landed in the prison or in banishing. Most glaringly is the story of the brothers Johan and Cornelis de Witt, who had protected Spinoza, providing him with food, money and legal support: A furious mob of Monarchists and Calvinists in 1672 got them out of prison and carried out a lynching court in the style of that time: they mangled the bodies and pulled out the hearts, showing them full of triumph to the audience - many of the members of the aristocracy, sitting in carriages. A very anarchistic version of almost forgotten Inca- and Aztec-rites. Only with strive Spinoza's friends could prevent him from posting a placard near the site of the massacre, reading ULTIMI BARBARORUM (You are the greatest of all barbarians).

   Spinoza's family, Jewish, harassed by the Inquisition, had escaped Spain like thousand others to find refuge in the Netherlands, which showed more toleration. Spinoza's first thinking results, which regarded the Bible as an historical writing collection of different humans (thus by no means written by God), led him to be excommunicated from the Dutch community of Portuguese Jews. The autocratic Sephardim rabbinical leadership wrote 1656 in beautiful calligraphic letters: "As to the judgement of the angels and statement of the holy we banish, curse, bewitch and condemn Baruch de Spinoza. Beware of operating with him verbally or in writing, beware of proving him the smallest favor, beware of reading his books..."

   The remainder of his life (like an early forerunner of the famous Anne Frank, who was hidden by Amsterdam citizens from Nazi pursuance) Spinoza hid mostly in small grave chambers of rooms and he lost all the wealth of his family business. Secretly he was supported by friends. Additional he earned money by lens grinding (but the sharpening of glass caused an early death: the inhaled dust destroyed his lungs). Convinced of the correctness of his thinking he as long as possible continued writing, persistently and annoyingly - however anonymous.

   He did not want to die in public at stake like his forerunner Giordano Bruno in Rome 1600. Spinoza was fascinated by the hypothesis of a Pantheism, first developed by the efforts of Giordano Bruno. In his "Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect" he defined God as ruled by the same causes like nature ("deus, siva natura"). At that time neither the Jews nor the Christians had been ready to accept such dogmatic changes or at least to tolerate such opinions (which of course weakened the religious authorities).

   A large city is - today like at that time - characterized by the fact, that trends in different parts of the society are not simultaneous. The aristocratic, bourgeois, working class or religious circles always have different speeds. The intellectual circles, sympathizing with Spinoza, seemed to live already in the 18th century.

   Because Spinoza, inspired by Hobbes, also risked to formulate basics of a democratic society, he came immediately into conflict with the Netherlands Orangists, who controlled the state. The mob, brought to a level of puppets as well by the princes as by the clerical - the mob was not enlightenmentable by the shy and sensitive considerations of a cautiously hidden publisher.

   We would have to thank Spinoza (if it would be possible) for his persistance, which helped to develop modern constitutions of states and stabilized the opinion, that a religion must not be monopolized, but, in the contrary, has to follow individual interpretations as well. With regard to September Eleven and the US-reaction against fundamentalist assaults we faster could decide, how to response. I think: not using military, but using reason: no religion should lead us to a Crusade or a "Reverse Crusade" anymore. Monopolizing trends of denominations should be stopped. By the name of Spinoza!

No comments about Greek Philosophers (BCP Greek Texts) (BCP Greek Texts) (BCP Greek Texts).

2 comments about Marine Lover of Friedrich Nietzsche (European Perspectives).

1. While there is so much talk about Irigaray's lack of understanding of Neitzsche, it is obvious that previous reviewers have a lack of understanding of Irigaray. Her inquiries are focused around language and how it is used. Her analysis is nothing short of detailed. "Man-hating" it is not, patriarchy-hating it is, what is more this book draws attention to the language that perpetuates patriarchal society and the damage it does to women, but also to men.



2. The first thing that I am likely to notice about a book is whether it has an index. This book has no index. I have the 1991 English translation by Gillian C. Gill of Luce Irigaray's book MARINE LOVER OF FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE in paperback, and between pages 75 and 119, the only indication at the top of the page to show what this part is about are the words, "Veiled Lips." This is not too surprising for a book that seems to be mainly about the attractions of Nietzsche's ideas because it builds on a section of SPURS / NIETZSCHE'S STYLES by Jacques Derrida called `Veils' in which truth is compared to woman as "Nietzsche revives that barely allegorical figure (of woman) in his own interest. For him, truth is like a woman. It resembles the veiled movement of feminine modesty. Their complicity, the complicity (rather than the unity) between woman, life, seduction, modesty--all the veiled and veiling effects . . ." (SPURS, p. 51).
   
   Fortunately, there is an index in WOMANIZING NIETZSCHE / PHILOSOPHY'S RELATION TO THE FEMININE by Kelly Oliver, and "Veiled Lips" even appears in her index, for a discussion of this book in a chapter on Jacques Derrida (3 The Question of Appropriation). Kelly Oliver suggests, "Irigaray's criticism could be seen as a lesson in psychoanalytic theory." (Womanizing Nietzsche, p. 81). The theory here is not as interesting to me as the possibility of gaining a woman's perspective on a point at which philosophy seems to be close to humor, if modern comedy is recognized in the playful manner in which Derrida explains the great question "Supposing truth to be a woman--what?" found at the opening of Nietzsche's BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL. His translation gains clarity by emphasizing a term of contempt: ". . . all philosophers, when they have been dogmatists, have had little understanding of women . . . [and] the gruesome earnestness, the clumsy importunity with which they have been in the habit of approaching truth have been inept and improper means (ungeschickte und unschickliche Mittel) for winning a wench (Frauenzimmer is a term of contempt: an easy woman)?" (SPURS, p. 55).
   
   Do I need to be forgiven for such a rude interruption? By emphasizing the comic aspects of modern society, I often make myself feel that I am interrupting people who have far more serious concerns. This could be a good time for appreciating the earnest efforts of a woman to meet Nietzsche halfway on ideas which he chose, as Luce Irigaray attempts to do in MARINE LOVER OF FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE. The section `Veiled Lips' opens with a few paragraphs containing words that might be found in joking about which lips are meant: "if not its accessories and its underside. And the opposite remains caught up in the same. . . . With a flip of the coin," (p. 77). She knew what Nietzsche's laughter was: "And you laughed at having been so blindly trusting. And burned as you reclaimed the flames once devoted to their cult." (p. 53). I have not usually been too concerned with the interpretation which might be placed upon Nietzsche by typical modern scholarship, such as it is, but the problem of the education of women looms large in trying to understand what moderns might consider the worst things he wrote.
   
   Nietzsche had excelled in school in studies of the ancient Greeks, and he was made a professor at the age of 24 in 1869 so he could teach Greek ideas to boys in an educational system that was primarily about dead European males. His first book, THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY, praised the Greeks as surviving from one culture to another:
   
   "And so one feels ashamed and afraid in the presence of the Greeks, unless one prizes truth above all things and dares acknowledge even this truth: that the Greeks, as charioteers, hold in their hands the reins of our own and every other culture, but that almost always chariot and horses are of inferior quality and not up to the glory of their leaders, who consider it sport to run such a team into an abyss which they themselves clear with the leap of Achilles." (BIRTH OF TRAGEDY, section 15, Kaufmann translation, p. 94).
   
   Taking such a long view of things hardly helps the modern student who is looking for something useful, but this book is not likely to find readers for whom it accomplishes much. Women having equal access to such an education could hardly fail to make their own proclamations about what might be worth knowing, and the chaos of modern society gets boosted for diversity in the process, but my personal theme of praising the hemlock which Athens granted Socrates as a sentence for engaging in philosophy is not too wild to be found in this book, even where it is not stated explicitly. "What are you unable to abandon? What place are you unwilling to leave? What weight always holds you back at the same point? The will to live or to die? . . . Because to receive, without swallowing up what has been given to you . . ." (p. 42).
   
   "Socrates desiring death, and achieving it thanks to a drink given to him by the citizens, signifies his allegiance to the Dionysiac. It is by this means that he will take away its power. . . . the death `for a laugh' of the philosopher whose potion is the logos." (p. 98).
   
   I probably left out the best parts (for everybody but me), but by cherrypicking a few themes and some indication of who might consider this book important, some people might get the idea that guys aren't likely to do great in the humanities anyway, so why try?

No comments about Henry of Ghent's Summa of Ordinary Questions: Article One: On the Possibility of Knowing.

4 comments about Jacques Derrida (Religion and Postmodernism Series).

1. It is a extraordinary book. It Gives you a perfect way to introduce you to Derrida's project (if it is possible to say a "project") of deconstruction and if you have already read something of Derrida it gives you a way of get deeper in Derrida's way of thinking.
   
   Goffrey Bennington worked close to Derrida in order to achieve this book in a very faithful way to Derrida's thought. Derrida himself write the supplement (If you allow me the irony)of this book, it is very interesting see how Derrida think about himself.



2. It is clear that Bennington "gets" Derrida in this work. Bennington is easily one of the (maybe) 2 or 3 persons alive that are even nearly qualified to "finish Derrida's sentence." Everything I read of his is almost as if Derrida, himself, were writing.
   
   Though an excellent look at exactly what Derrida is up to in his early days from Grammatology to Glas, this is not for the beginner. "Deconstruction in a Nutshell" by John Caputo and "How to Read Derrida" by Penelope Deutscher are better for introductory purposes.
   
   This work was indispensable for me, as I was introduced to Derrida through his later works and had very little idea how his whole project began in the 60s, 70s, and 80s.
   
   If you are fairly experienced in theory, I would recommend laboring through this work, then re-reading it a couple years later after further work with Derrida, Heidegger, etc. It will clear up a lot of question marks while opening up new, more exciting ones.



3. This is absolutely one of Derrida's most playful, revealing and important works. And one of my favorites. However, if you are just getting into Derrida, this may not be the best one to start with - unless you read it as a post-modernist autobiography.
   
   If you are a student of Derrida, then this one is indispensable.



4. I'll admit that it's hard enough to read Derrida, and I won't suggest that this is easier - in fact, reading this as a straightforward work front-to-back will probably lead to more confusion. But I definitely appreciate Derrida's paratextual manipulations and evasions of Bennington, who tries as hard as he can to pin down Derrida's thought at the same time. Bennington's topical arrangement is a great entre into the various subjects Derrida takes up in his philosophy, as long as you don't take it too dogmatically... and Derrida constantly comments in his running footnote to make sure that you don't.

No comments about The One And the Many: Reading Isaiah Berlin.

5 comments about The Pope and the Heretic: The True Story of Giordano Bruno, the Man Who Dared to Defy the Roman Inquisition.

1. This book is far from being either a thorough or balanced biography of Bruno. When its not digressing into the author's sweeping and judgmental generalizations about history - "For such people, everyday life was an agony and the society in which they lived was almost stagnant...all but a few... spent most of their time inebriated" - and his demonization of Christianity, it focuses only on Bruno's arrest and trial and covers only in bad summary or not at all the rest of his life. White rips on Catholicism and Protestantism beyond the facts, yet depicts Renaissance intellectuals anticipating a supposedly true faith of modern scientific theories and method as humanity's salvation. What few and poor citations and footnotes are provided - "Christian doctrine does not evolve; it is based upon cast-in-stone tenets and therefore cannot develop or offer anything radical or original." - are too little to justify the sweeping judgments, and leave one confused as to whether the Hollywood style dialogues between Bruno and his confessor are actual quotes or White's embelishments.
   
   Its no secret that the churches and governments of Europe abused their power severely during the last 1900 years. A lot of the bleakness of situation that White describes is true. But he goes beyond history to paint a black and white picture of a purely evil church and intellectuals martyred for their belief in scientific methods and theories that DIDN'T YET EXIST. The complexity of the historical situation and the intelectual relationships between the Christian clergy and scholars is glazed over; the motives and reasons for the atmosphere of suppresion are chalked off solely to the evil ignorance and greed of every single person of power in the church. The complexity of the crossover identities of European Christian scholars and their struggle to reconcile their faith and observations goes out the window - White has Bruno convenienently seeing the good in everything mainstream science currently cheers, and totally condemning everything it currently despises. His treatment of Bruno's interests is completely anachronistic and belays all the tenets he held to that scientists would balk at, and vice versa.
   
   This book isn't about Bruno's views - its about White's. Like a bad Hollywood movie set against a historical backdrop, this is more about what's going on now then what happened back then.



2. It is strange, that religion and burning in the history of mankind frequently lie together so near: momentarily the assassination attempts of Islamic fundamentalists in New York, London, Madrid and elsewhere, or (on the other hand) the million humans, who became victims of the Inquisition of the catholic church in the Middle Ages. Giordano Bruno has been one of the most famous mourners. Because he questioned the Ptolomaei conception of the world of an earth, around which everything circles, and because he tried to replace the earth-centric-theory by an analysis, which postulated a lot of moving solar systems (plausibly spoken from today's view), in which there is no hierarchical order, - therefore he had to accept more and more furious attempts against his person, which wanted to force his obedience. Apparently unteachable he classified the subject not as passive nullity directed of God, but as active, self-constructing substance. The theories of the Vatican of the case of sin and of the predetermination of the fate Giordano Bruno rejected as life-strange. "The general opinion is not always the perfect truth..." Giordano Bruno today is still quoted. Such remarks produced expensive, bitter consequences: On 17 February 1600 he publicly was burned on the Campo di Fiori in Rome after eight years torture and dungeon detention. Hundreds of years the burning of disbelieving people seemed to be the major task of the Christian denomination. However today the Pope-administration gradually makes some steps backwards, remorseful: On February 18, in the year 2000, cardinal Angelo Sodano, the undersecretary of state of the Vatican, expressed the "deep regret" of the catholic church (according to ZENITH NEWS AGENCY with regard to the death sentence against Giordano Bruno) in a letter to the participants of a congress in Napoli, which took place for the memory of this Italian philosopher in the local theological faculty 2000. It was a "terrible death", "a sad episode in newer Christian history". Respect considering the dignity and the conscience of humans, who look persistently for the truth: this is a level, in the present not yet all countries, confessions or population circles succeed to manage. The book of the British science journalist Michael White ("Science editor of British GQ Magazine") was criticized by some reviewers, because it has been written in a teenager-language, less scientific, more thrilling like an adventure-story. But on the other hand it is an easily reading, you can practice before you will fall asleep. Short before snoring you can brood about the fact, that religion (connected with the aim to burn people of "wrong" confession) did not yet disappear as a pattern of acting among the earth inhabitants 400 years later...



3. I have a bad record of choosing books from the Airport Bookstores. I have made some really attrocious choices. This one is not that bad, but I could not recommend it to anyone. If I would have read the inside flap I would have realised that Michael White was the "Science Editor of British GQ Magazine" --- I did not know that anyone who read GQ would be even interested in Science, but if they are, there taste would be light to the point of idiocy, like this book.
   
   The title is inane enough. It lured me in like a sucker... I was interested in reading the counterpoint of what would be two personalities --- the Pope and Bruno. But the Pope does not even really appear in the book.
   
   The main problem is twofold:
   
   1) Lack of any discernable organisation. The book is a mess. It is hard to put together any discernable record of the like of Bruno after I read this --- was he in Frankfurt first and then Paris? Maybe it was the other way around?
   
   This means that White mixes everything up, chronology, main themes and the roles of people in the book. Ideas are not at all well developed. There is a sometimes peurile feeling about his writing style: when an idea is developed a little he switches to other things --- one feels that he is writing at times for the attention span of a 12- yr-old reader.
   
   2) Weak development of themes inside the book. Scholastic ossification of the ideas of the Catholic Church is a great topic, but White's starts with a description of how Aristotle was always wrong on everything... and vaguely brushes him off as an almost personal hindrance to development of ideas. Such comic-book interpretations really show a lack of mastery of his subject.
   
   White intimates a tremendous importance for the hermetic tradition, although he keeps this significantly nebulous (something that a reader of GQ or Omni might be interested in). As usual his work verges towards veneration for mysticism.
   
   At the end of the day he should have marshalled his forces with more discipline and spent the time on making this into a serious work that it should be, and as Bruno deserves. It appears that he merely cranked this one out. He will pay for this as readers such as I will never buy another of his books.
   
   Back to the Thompson Twins Mr. White!



4. Michael White succeeds in personalizing the heretic monk Giordano Bruno, giving us a more complete picture of the man than we find in other sources. His book educates us about the social, political, and religious environment in which Bruno lectured and wrote. We also feel his suffering at the hands of the Inquisition. Unfortunately, we learn less about Bruno's ideas, which covered a remarkably wide range of speculations. We are given only shorthand versions.

   White's writing is very readable, but one sometimes wonders if all of it is based on documented fact. For example, he writes that "A sudden hush fell over the room; the judges sat motionless. Bruno, his confidence clearly ebbing away, his energy almost drained, looked around the room once more, seeing the still faces, the eyes of witnesses quickly averted." How does White know all these details? Passages like this read as if the author were using literary invention to make the dry records of the Inquisition more interesting.




5. This is a horrible book. I checked it out from my local library because I didn't have much faith in it, and I was sorry I even wasted my time reading it.

   Who does this book serve? For those who know anything about Giordano Bruno, it is a waste of time. And those who don't know anything about him might be discouraged by how poorly-written this book is, and thus decide not to look further into Giordano Bruno or his philosophy.

   Only the most titilating aspects of Bruno's execution at the stake are really described with any detail in this book. Michael White doesn't really explain anything about Bruno's complex philosophical system, based upon the Art of Memory and founded through the Renaissance perspective that ancient wisdom had more to offer than the modern knowledge of the time. Bruno intuited that the sun was the center of our solar system and that the earth was only one of an infinite number of planets, not through data compiled by looking through a telescope, but by reading ancient texts -- from Plotinus to Nicholas of Cusa and others -- and picked out the parts that made sense to him. He then syntesized these ideas into a coherent worldview that reflected his perception of the world around him. In the work On the Composition of Images, Signs and Ideas, Bruno's discussion about images and ideas the humans construct in their minds and how they relate to the actual objects themselves can be seen as a precursor to semiotics.

   If you are looking for a biography of Bruno in English, then read Giordano Bruno: His Life And Thought by Dorothea Waley Singer. It is out of print, but might be out there still on the internet. The writing is clear, it avoids sensationalistic descriptions of bloodshed (unlike Michael White), and has a more firm understanding of Bruno's philosophy.

   If you are looking for inspired attempts to place Bruno's philosophical system within the context of other streams of thought in Renaissance Europe, then look into Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition and/or The Art of Memory, both of which are by Frances Yates.

   The main drawback with these books by Yates is that she thinks of everything as "Hermetic." Their are Cabalistic influences in Bruno's thought, and Yates doesn't always bring that out in her analyses. But there are other books available that follow up on the good scholarship in Yates, and question her bold enthusiasms when they overstep the evidence. Such works are Eros and Magic in the Renaissance by Ioan Couliano, the book by Hilary Gatti -- which analyzes how he operated as a scientist and not just a philosopher, and Giordano Bruno and the Philosophy of the Ass by Nuccio Ordine -- which tries to place his theory of the path to wisdom through ignorance in a well-established tradition.

   If you want to read Bruno's work itself, there are many of his works available in English, including the Rabelaisian and bawdy play, The Candlebearer, published by Dovehouse Editions in Canada, as well as his more philosophically mature dialogues, The Ash Wednesday Supper, The Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast, and The Cabala of Pegasus.

   In short, anyone expressing even the slightest interest in any aspect of Giordano Bruno should look elsewhere, and avoid this book by Michael White.

No comments about Rudolf Steiner: An Illustrated Biography.

No comments about Witness to My Life.

No comments about Schopenhauer (Blackwell Great Minds).