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Spinoza and the rise of liberalism
Title
Spinoza and the rise of liberalism / Lewis Samuel Feuer.
ISBN
1315130165
1351488406
9781315130163
9781351488402
9780887387012
9781138533394
Publication
London : Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2017.
Physical Description
1 online resource
Local Notes
Access is available to the Yale community.
Access and use
Access restricted by licensing agreement.
Summary
"In this classic work the author undertakes to show how Spinoza's philosophical ideas, particularly his political ideas, were influenced by his underlying emotional responses to the conflicts of his time. It thus differs form most professional philosophical analyses of the philosophy of Spinoza. The author identifies and discusses three periods in the development of Spinoza's thought and shows how they were reactions to the religious, political and economic developments in the Netherlands at the time. In his first period, Spinoza reacted very strongly to the competitive capitalism of the Amsterdam Jews whose values were ""so thoroughly pervaded by an economic ethics that decrees the stock exchange approached in dignity the decrees of God, "" and of the ruling classes of Amsterdam, and was led out only to give up his business activities but also to throw in his lot with the Utopian groups of the day. In his second period, Spinoza developed serious doubts about the practicality of such idealistic movements and became a ""mature political partisan"" of Dutch liberal republicanism. The collapse of republicanism and the victory of the royalist party brought further disillusionment. Having become more reserved concerning democratic processes, and having decided that ""every form of government could be made consistent with the life of free men, "" Spinoza devoted his time and efforts to deciding what was essential to any form of government which would make such a life possible. In his carefully crafted introduction to this new edition, Lewis Feuer responds to his critics, and reviews Spinoza's worldview in the light of the work of later scientists sympathetic to this own basic standpoint. He reviews Spinoza's arguments for the ethical and political contributions of the principle of determinism, and examines how these have guided, and at times frustrated, students and scholars of the social and physical sciences who have sought to understand and advance these disciplines."--Provided by publisher
Variant and related titles
Taylor & Francis. EBA 2024-2025.
Format
Books / Online
Language
English
Added to Catalog
August 08, 2024
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Contents
Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
Preface
Introduction to Transaction Edition
Chapter 1: The Excommunication of Baruch Spinoza
The Jewish Community of Amsterdam
Why Spinoza Was Excommunicated
The Economic and Political Structure of Amsterdam Jewry
The Use of Excommunication as a Socio-economic Weapon: the Cases of Menasseh ben Israel and Uriel Acosta
How Spinoza Became a Liberal Republican
Spinoza's Rejection of Jewish Authority
Spinoza's Judges: the Commercial Magnates and Rabbis Aboab and Morteira
The Trial
Chapter 2: Revolutionist in Mystic Withdrawal
The First Stage: Retreat Among the Religious Communists
Spinoza's Mennonite Friends
Spinoza's Meeting With an English Quaker Missionary
Spinoza's Pantheism and the Radical Thought of the Seventeenth Century
Chapter 3: Political Scientist in the Cause of Human Liberation
The Political Setting
The Birth of Liberalism
The Calvinist Party in the Netherlands
Spinoza and John de Witt: the Geometrical Method in Po litics
Spinoza and the Mass of Mankind
Determinism and Social Science: the Guide to Action and the Apotheosis of Acquiescence
Chapter 4: The Promise and Anguish of Democracy
Demonstration of the Futility of Revolution
What Is Democracy?
Manifesto for Freedom
To Preserve the Republic
Chapter 5: Philosophic Liberal in a Reactionary Age
The Trauma of Democracy: the People as Mob
Spinoza Withdraws Again
Why Did the Liberal Republic Fall
Theory of a Commercial Aristocracy
Constitution for the Dictatorship of the Commercial Aristocracy
The Impasse of Authoritarian Liberalism
Academic Freedom and Public Education
A Republican Conceives the Theory of Limited Monarchy
The Masses: Free Men or Slaves
Chapter 6: A Free Man's Philosophy.
Mystic and Scientist: the Incompatible Components of Spinoza's Meta physics
The Ethics of the Free Man as a Critique of the Calvinist Ethics
The Mystic Rejection of Libertine Hedonism
The Therapy of Self-understanding: Precursor to Freud
Intellectual Love of God and Intellectual Hatred
The Eternity of the Human Mind: Spinoza's Leap Beyond the Geometrical Method
Ultimate Uncertainty: the Failure of the Geometrical Method
Spinoza as a Left Cartesian The Infinity of God: a Masochist Projection
The Infinity of God: the Discovery of the Plurality of Attributes
The Final Disunity of Spinoza's Thought: Linguistic Nonsense or Linguistic Transfiguration?
Epilogue
Notes
Index.
Subjects
Genre/Form
Electronic books.
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