Chapter 59 Chapter Ten Spinoza

Spinoza (Spinoza, 1632-77) was the noblest and most amiable of the great philosophers.Intellectually some surpassed him, but morally he was supreme.It was a natural consequence, therefore, that he was regarded, both during his lifetime and for a century after his death, as a horribly bad man.He was born a Jew, but the Jews excommunicated him.Christians hated him equally; the orthodox accused him of atheism, although the idea of ​​"God" ran through his entire philosophy.Leibniz, who had benefited greatly from him, kept it secret, carefully avoided saying a word in the praise of Spinoza; he even went so far as to lie about the extent of his personal friendship with the heretical Jew.

Spinoza's anger is simple.His family had originally traveled from Spain (perhaps Portugal) to Holland to escape the Inquisition.He himself was educated in Judaism, but felt that the orthodox belief could no longer be maintained.Someone offered him a thousand florins a year, and begged him to conceal his doubts; when he refused, he tried to kill him; Cursing and cursing everything, and cursing with the curses that Elisha had uttered to the children; and the children were torn apart by the she-bear, but no she-bear attacked Spinoza.He lived a quiet life, first in Amsterdam and then in The Hague, grinding his lenses for a living.His material desires are simple and few, and he shows a rare indifference to money throughout his life.The few who knew him loved him even if they disagreed with his beliefs.The Dutch government, which had always been liberal, was tolerant of his views on theological questions; but for a time he was politically discredited for siding with the de Witts against the Dukes of Orange.He died of consumption at the ripe old age of forty-four.

His major work, Ethics, was published posthumously.Before discussing this book, it is necessary to say a few words about his other two works——Tractatus Theologico-Politicus and TractaA tus Politicus.The former book is a wonderful fusion of biblical criticism and political theory; the latter book is only about political theory.In biblical criticism, and especially in assigning the books of the Old Testament to a date much later than traditionally dated, Spinoza pioneered some modern opinion.He was always trying to show that the Bible could be interpreted compatible with a liberal theology. Spinoza's political theory is roughly in line with Hobbes's, despite the vast difference in temperament between Spinoza and Hobbes.He believes that in the state of nature there is neither "yes" nor "wrong", because the so-called "wrong" means breaking the law.He held that the Sovereign had no fault; the church should be wholly subordinate to the state, and he agreed with Hobbes on this point.Spinoza was against all rebellion, even against bad government; and he cited the sufferings of England as evidence of the evils of violent resistance to authority.But he saw democracy as the "most natural" form of government, contrary to Hobbes' opinion.Spinoza disagreed with Hobbes on one more point: he believed that subjects should not sacrifice all their rights to the sovereign.In particular, he believes that freedom of opinion is important.I do not quite understand how he reconciles this with the opinion that religious questions should be decided by the state.In my opinion, he said that the state should decide, meaning that religious issues should not be decided by the church, but by the state; in the Netherlands, the state is much more tolerant than the church.

Spinoza's Ethics discusses three different themes.It starts with metaphysics, then turns to the psychology of various passions and wills, and finally expounds an ethical view based on the previous metaphysics and psychology.Metaphysics is a variant of Cartesian philosophy, and psychology also bears the legacy of Hobbes, but the ethics are unique, which is the most valuable part of the book.Spinoza's relation to Descartes is in some respects similar to that of Plotinus to Plato.Descartes was a man of many faces, full of intellectual curiosity but without great moral zeal. Although he created some "proofs" in an attempt to support the orthodox belief, just as Carneade used Plato, he may not be used by skeptics.Spinoza certainly had no shortage of scientific interests, and even wrote a treatise on the rainbow, but he was primarily concerned with religious and moral issues.He took over from Descartes and some of his contemporaries a set of materialist and deterministic physics within which he endeavored to find a place for a life of piety and devotion to the "good."It was a truly magnificent feat, and it aroused admiration even among those who thought it unsuccessful.

Spinoza's metaphysical system is of the type initiated by Parmenides.There is only one entity, that is, "God is nature"; any finite thing does not exist independently.Descartes admits that there are three substances, God, spirit, and matter; indeed, even according to him, God is in a certain sense more worthy of substance than spirit and matter; Because God created spirit and matter, he can destroy them if he wants to destroy them. But apart from their relation to the omnipotence of God, mind and matter are two separate entities, defined respectively by the two attributes of thought and extension.Spinoza absolutely disagrees with this view.In his view, thinking and extension are both attributes of God.God has an infinite number of other attributes, since God must be everywhere infinite; but these additional attributes are unknown to us.Individual souls and lumps of matter are for Spinoza adjectival; these are not real beings, but aspects of "God is."The personal eternal life that Christians believe in is absolutely nothing, only impersonal eternal life in the sense of becoming more and more one with God.A finite thing is defined by its physical or logical boundaries, in other words, by its non-something: "All certainty is negation." There can only be one fully positive "being" (God), It must be absolutely infinite.Spinoza then enters into a pantheism which is absolutely undiluted.

According to Spinoza, everything is governed by an absolute logical necessity.In the spiritual realm there is neither so-called free will nor in the physical realm is there any chance.Everything that happens is a manifestation of God's inconceivable nature, so events cannot logically be different from reality.This statement raises some difficulties in the matter of evil, which critics do not hesitate to point out.One critic said that, according to Spinoza, everything is determined by God, so it is all good. Then, he asked angrily, is it good that Nero killed his mother?Could it be that Adam ate an apple and was called good?Spinoza replied that in these two acts the positive part is good, and only the negative part is evil; but only from the point of view of finite creatures, there is such a thing as negation.Only God is completely real, speaking of God, there is no negation; therefore, when we consider something sinful, we see it as a part of the whole, and there is no evil in it.Although this doctrine has been advocated by most mystics in various forms, it is obviously impossible to reconcile with the orthodox doctrine of punishment for crimes.It is closely related to Spinoza's total denial of free will.Although Spinoza did not like to argue at all, he was honest in nature and did not hide his opinions no matter how absurd and appalling the people of the time found them, so it is not surprising that his theories were hated.

The teaching method in the book "Ethics" is modeled on the style of geometry, with definitions, axioms, and theorems; everything behind the axioms is believed to be strictly proved by deductive arguments.So his book is difficult to read.A modern scholar cannot imagine that there will be a strict "proof" for the things he claims to establish, and he will inevitably feel impatient with the details of the proof. In fact, such details are not worth mastering. It will suffice to read the descriptions of the propositions, and to study the commentary, which contains much of the essence of the Ethics.But to blame Spinoza for geometric methods would also show a lack of knowledge.Advocating that everything is possible to prove is the essence and lifeblood of Spinoza's philosophical system, not only in metaphysics, but also in ethics; so proof must be mentioned. We cannot accept his method because we cannot accept his metaphysics.We cannot believe that the interrelationships of the parts of the universe are logical, because we believe that the laws of science must be discovered by observation, not by reasoning alone.But in Spinoza, the geometric method must be used, and it is closely connected with the most fundamental part of his theory.

Now for Spinoza's theory of emotion.This part is placed after the metaphysical discussion on the nature and origin of the spirit, which leads to the astonishing proposition that "the human spirit has a proper knowledge of the eternal and infinite nature of God".But the passions of the third book of the Ethics confuse our minds, and cloud our intellectual perception of the whole.According to him, "everything, as long as it is in itself, strives to maintain its own existence." Hence love, hatred and strife. The psychology presented in the third volume is entirely egoistic psychology. "Whoever imagines the object of his hatred destroyed will feel happy." "If we imagine someone enjoying something, and this thing can only be possessed by one person, we will try to prevent this person from having it." In this volume, there are also times when Spinoza throws away the cynicism of mathematical argumentation and says something like this: "Hate is strengthened by hatred, but reversed by love." In Spinoza's opinion "Self-preservation" is the fundamental motive of all passions; but what is real, positive in ourselves, is what unites us to the whole, not what preserves the apparent separation, which we experience as one. At this point, self-preservation changes character.

The last two volumes of the Ethics, entitled "On the Servitude of Man, or the Power of the Feelings" and "On the Power of the Intellect, or the Liberty of Man", are the most interesting.To the extent that what happens to us is determined by external causes, we are enslaved accordingly; to the extent that we are self-determined, we are free.Like Socrates and Plato, Spinoza believed that all impropriety arises from errors of knowledge: a man who is properly aware of his personal circumstances behaves wisely, and who encounters misfortune to others, He will even still be happy.Spinoza does not talk about selflessness; he believes that in a certain sense "self-interest", especially "self-preservation", dominates all human behavior. "We cannot conceive of any virtue prior to this effort to preserve one's own existence." But what the virtuous man chooses as the object of his self-interest differs from that of the common egoist: "The highest good of the spirit is the knowledge of God, and the highest virtue of the spirit is to know God." If emotion is produced by inappropriate concepts, it is called "passion"; different people's passion may conflict, but follow the rational process People who live will live together in harmony.

Pleasure itself is good, but hope and fear are bad, as are humility and remorse: "He who regrets an action is doubly miserable or weak." Spinoza saw time as something unreal, so He held that all emotions, which are essentially connected with past or future events, are contrary to reason. "The mind is equally moved as long as it comprehends things under the direction of reason, whether that idea be of a present thing, of a past thing, or of a future thing." This is a harsh sentence, but it is the essence of Spinoza's philosophical system, so it is worth talking about it in detail for now.According to popular opinion, "every ending is good"; it is better for the universe to gradually get better than to get worse, even though the sum of good and evil in both cases is equal.We are more concerned with the present calamities than with the calamities of Genghis Khan's time.Espinoza said it was unreasonable.Everything that happens, as God sees it, is part of the eternal timeless world; to God the year, month, and day matter nothing.The sage strives, as far as human finitude allows, to see the world as God sees it, SubspecieBternitatis (subspecieBternitatis).You may object that we are more concerned with future misfortunes than with past misfortunes, and that must be right, since future misfortunes may still be averted, whereas past misfortunes are beyond our control.

Spinoza's determinism gives an answer to this set of principles.We are all ignorant that we think we can change the future; what will happen will happen, and the future is as certain as the past. It is for this reason that "hope" and "fear" are condemned: both depend on uncertainty about the future, and are therefore born of want of wisdom. If we try our best to obtain a world image similar to God's world image, then we will regard all things as parts of the whole, as indispensable to the good of the whole, and look at it this way.That is why it is said that "knowledge of evil is inappropriate knowledge." God has no knowledge of evil because there is no evil to know; it is only because the parts of the universe are regarded as if they really exist independently that the illusion of evil is produced as a result. Spinoza's worldview is intended to liberate man from the oppression of fear. "The free man thinks least of all about death; therefore his wisdom is not a meditation on death but a meditation on life." Spinoza lived up to this maxim.On the last day of his life, he remained completely calm, unlike Socrates in the Phaedo, but as on any other day, he talked about the issues of interest to his interlocutor as usual.Spinoza, unlike some other philosophers, not only believed in what he taught, but also practiced it; I do not know of a single occasion in which he, despite very infuriating events, fell into the trap of his own ethics. In the fury and exasperation of condemnation.In arguing with others, he is modest and reasonable, never criticizing, but trying his best to persuade the other party. What happens to us is good as long as it is produced by ourselves; only what comes from outside is evil to us. "Since everything which is man's effective cause is necessarily good, no evil can befall man except through external causes." So it is clear that nothing evil can happen to the universe as a whole, because it is not subject to external causes. The role of cause. "We are part of all nature, and so we obey its laws. If we have a clear and distinct understanding of this, that part of our nature which is limited by reason, in other words, the better part of ourselves , will definitely accept the impending event silently, and strive to stick to this silent acceptance." As long as a person is involuntarily a part of the larger whole, he is enslaved; But as long as he grasps by his understanding the sole reality of the whole, he is free. The last volume of the Ethics develops the inner implications of this doctrine. Spinoza does not, like the Stoics, object to all emotions; he objects only to such emotions as "passion," that is, those emotions which make us appear passive to external forces. "An emotion is a passion, and as soon as we form a clear and distinct idea of ​​it, it ceases to be a passion." The understanding that all things are necessary helps the mind to gain the power to control the emotions. "Whoever understands himself and his emotions clearly and clearly loves God; the more he understands himself and his emotions, the more he loves God." From this proposition, we come into contact with "intellectual love for God" for the first time. The so-called wisdom is this love.Intellectual love to God is the unity of mind and emotion: I think it may be said that it is the joy of true thinking combined with the grasp of truth.All joy in true thought is a part of the intellectual love of God, and because it contains nothing negative, it is really a part of the whole, not like fragments which are separated from each other in thought so as to appear evil, and only in Appearance is part of the whole. I said just now that the intellectual love of God includes joy, but this may be a misunderstanding, since Spinoza says that God is not moved by any emotion, either pleasure or pain, and that "the intellectual love of the spirit to God is the infinite love of God to himself." A part of love." But I still feel that there is always something in "reason·love" that is not purely reason; maybe the joy in modern philosophy in AEZ 211 volume 3 is regarded as something higher than happiness. According to him, "the love of God must have the primacy of the spirit." So far I have omitted all of Spinoza's proofs, but in doing so my description of his thought would not be complete.Because the proofs of the above propositions are very short, I quote them all now; the reader can then imagine to supplement the proofs for other propositions.The proof of the above proposition is as follows: "For this love (V, Prop. 14) is connected with and (by V, Prop. 15) cultivated by all the sensibility of the body; therefore (V, Prop. 11) it must Spiritual primacy. Q.E.D." Several propositions mentioned in the above proof: Book V, Proposition XIV says: "The spirit can relate all the sensations of the body or the images of things to the idea of ​​God"; book 5, Proposition 15 quoted earlier, that is, "whoever understands himself and his emotions clearly and clearly loves God; The more you understand yourself and your emotions, the more you will love God"; Book 5, Proposition 11 says "The more objects an image is associated with, the more frequently it appears, or the more often it is alive, and the more it occupies the mind." The "proof" quoted above may be put in this way: every increase in understanding of what happens to us lies in the connection between events and the concept of God, because in fact everything is a part of God.To understand everything as a part of God is to love God.When all objects are related to God, the idea of ​​God fully occupies the mind. Thus the statement "the love of God must have the primacy of the spirit" is not at all a moral exhortation; it speaks of what must inevitably happen as we gain understanding. According to him, no one hates God, but on the other hand, "the lover of God does not try to make God love him back." Goethe admired Spinoza before he even started to know him. , he takes this proposition as an example of self-denial.This proposition is by no means self-denial, but the logical conclusion of Spinoza's metaphysics. He didn't say that man should not expect God to love him; he said that he who loves God should not expect God to love him. This is clear from the proof; the proof says: "For if a man makes such an effort, then (according to Book V, Proposition XVII, corollary) it means that the God whom he desires to love is not God, therefore (according to Book III, Proposition XIX) means that he wants to feel pain, which (according to Book III, Proposition XXVIII) is unreasonable.” Book V Proposition XVII is the one already mentioned, and it says that God has no passion, pleasure, or pain. ; The theory quoted above infers that God neither loves nor hates anyone.Here again, the implication is not a moral lesson, but a logical necessity: whoever loves God and wants God to love him, wants to feel pain, "it doesn't make sense." The statement that God loves no one must not be taken as contradicting the statement that God loves himself with infinite reason.God can love himself, because it can be done without false beliefs involved; and, after all, intellectual love is, after all, a very special kind of love. Having said this, Spinoza tells us that he has now pointed out to us "the whole prescription for the correction of every emotion." The main prescription is a clear and definite conception of the nature of emotion and its relationship to external causes.Love of God compares favorably with love of man: "Mental ill health and unhappiness can generally be traced to an excessive love of something which is inevitably variable." The love of things that are eternal and unchangeable" does not have the disturbing quality of love to changeable objects. Although it is delusion that the personality remains after death, there is still something in the human spirit that is eternal.The spirit can imagine and remember anything only when the body exists, but there is an idea in God which expresses the essence of this or that human body in eternal form, and this idea is the eternal part of the spirit.Intellectual love for God is contained in this eternal part of the spirit as it is personally experienced. Bliss, made of intellectual love to God, is not the reward of virtue, but virtue itself; not because we renounce our passions, we enjoy happiness, but because we enjoy happiness, we renounce our passions. The Ethics ends with these words: "A virtuous person, as long as he is considered a virtuous person, his soul is rarely disturbed, but he knows himself, God, and things according to a certain eternal necessity, never ceases to exist, and always maintains the true self-sufficiency of the soul. I The way to this result is indicated, though it may seem very difficult, yet it is always a way to be found. Since this way is seldom found, it is undoubtedly difficult. If salvation is at hand, it will not take much labor. It can be obtained, how can it be ignored by almost everyone? But all noble things are both rare and difficult.” To make a critical assessment of Spinoza's position as a philosopher, it is necessary to distinguish his ethics from his metaphysics, and to examine how much of the former remains without the latter. Spinoza's metaphysics is the best example of what is called "logical monism"; "Logical monism" is a theory that maintains that the universe as a whole is a single entity, and any part of it cannot logically exist alone.This view is ultimately based on the belief that all propositions have a single subject and a single predicate, from which we conclude that "relation" and "plurality" must be fictional. Spinoza thought that the essence of the universe and life can be deduced logically from some self-evident axioms; we should treat things with the same acquiescence attitude as we treat the fact that two plus two equals four, because they are also The result of logical necessity.This set of metaphysics cannot be trusted at all; it is fundamentally in conflict with modern logic and scientific method. Facts must be discovered by observation, not by reasoning. If we extrapolate to the future successfully, we do so by principles not of logical necessity, but of principles revealed by empirical data.Moreover, the concept of substance on which Spinoza is based is a concept that neither science nor philosophy can accept today. But when it comes to Spinoza's ethics, we feel, or at least I feel, that some things, though not all, are acceptable even without the metaphysical basis.Roughly speaking, Spinoza attempts to show how it is possible to live a sublime life even when the limits of human capabilities are acknowledged.He himself made the limit narrower than it really was, in favor of necessity; but where there is no doubt about the existence of human limits, Spinoza's maxims are probably the best.Take "death" as an example, none of the things that people can do will make people live forever, so it is useless to spend time on it, fearing and lamenting our inevitable death.To be haunted by the terror of death is slavery; and Spinoza was right when he said, "The least thing a free man thinks of is death."But even in this case it is only death in general that should be so treated; death from individual diseases should, so far as possible, be prevented by medical treatment.Even in this case, it is still some anxiety or fear to be avoided; all necessary means must be taken calmly, and our minds should then be diverted as far as possible to other matters.The same holds true for all other purely personal misfortunes. But what about the misfortune of your loved ones?Consider some of the things that the inhabitants of Europe or China tend to encounter in the present period.Suppose you are Jewish and your family was slaughtered.Suppose you were an anti-Nazi underground worker and your wife was shot because you couldn't be caught.Suppose your husband is sent to the Arctic to be forced to work for some purely imaginary crime, where he dies of cruel torture and starvation.Suppose your daughter was raped by enemy soldiers and then killed.Should you also maintain philosophical equanimity in this situation? If you follow the teaching of Christ, you will say, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." I've known Quakers who could really say something like that deeply and heartily, and I admire them because they can.But one must know for sure before expressing admiration that this misfortune is deeply felt as a matter of course.The attitude of some of the Stoics who said, "What does it matter to me if my family suffers? I can still be virtuous" is unacceptable.The Christian moral code "Love your enemies" is good, but the Stoic moral code "Take care of your friends" is bad.And what the Christian moral creed instills is not tranquility but passionate love even for the worst of men.There is no objection to this credo, but it is too difficult for most of us to practice sincerely. The primitive response to this plague is vengeance.McDuff heard that his wife and children had been killed by Macbeth, and he was determined to kill the tyrant. The vengeance response is still admired by most in cases where the injury is serious and is one that arouses moral outrage among those who have no stake.Nor can this reaction be wholly condemned, for it is an impetus for punishment, which is sometimes necessary.Moreover, from the point of view of mental health, the revenge impulse is often so strong that if it is not given an outlet, a person's whole outlook on life may become deformed and more or less paranoid.Although this statement is not universal, it is true in most cases.On the other hand, however, we must also say that revenge is a very dangerous motive.So long as society sanctioned vengeance, it allowed man to be a judge in his own case, which is what the law was designed to prevent.And vengeance is often an excessive motive; it seeks to punish beyond measure.For example, the crime of torture should not be punished with torture, but a person who is driven mad by revenge will think that it is too cheap to let the object of his hatred die painlessly.Nay, here Spinoza is right: a life dominated by a single passion is a narrow life incompatible with all kinds of wisdom.So this kind of vengeance is not the best response to harm. Spinoza will say what Christians say, and some more than that.In his view, all evils arise from ignorance; Even great misfortunes, avoid shutting yourself up in the world of personal sorrow; he will ask you to understand evil by relating it to its cause, as part of the whole law of nature.As mentioned earlier, he believes that "hate" can be overcome by "love". He said: "Hate is strengthened when hated is rewarded, but vice versa can be dispelled by love. Hate, which is completely overcome by love, is transformed into love; this kind of love is then Greater than if there had been no hatred." I wish I could believe this, but I cannot; but the exception is when the person who harbors the hatred is entirely in the hands of the one who refuses to reciprocate the hatred. doesn't count.In this case, the surprise of not being punished may also have the effect of dissuading others.But as long as the villain is powerful, it is of no use if you confess to him that you don't hate him, because he will attribute your words to bad motives.Speaking of non-resistance, you cannot deprive him of his power. The problem is easier for Spinoza than it is for someone who has no faith in the ultimate goodness of the universe.Spinoza believes that if you look at your disaster according to its essence, as part of the karma chain that starts from the beginning of time and ends at the end of time, you will know that this disaster is just for you. Disasters are not catastrophes to the universe. To the universe, they are only temporary dissonances that strengthen the final harmony. I cannot accept this statement; I think that individual events are what they are, and are not different because they are included in the whole.Every act of cruelty is forever part of the universe; Nothing that happens afterwards can make the act good or confer "perfection" on the whole which contains it. Having said that, if you should have to endure something worse (or in your opinion) than the ordinary fate of man, Spinoza speaks of thinking of the whole, or in general of something greater than your own grief. However, such a principle of life is still a useful principle.There are even times when we take comfort in contemplating that human life, with all its evils and sufferings, is but a drop in the ocean of universal life.Such thoughts may not constitute religious belief, but they are an aid to sanity in a world of torment, an antidote to the insensitivity of utter despair.