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100 of 102 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A fascinating story brilliantly told, February 26, 2006
It is a brilliant idea to compare and contrast these two philosophers - not only in respect of their ideas, but also in respect of their personalities, life-styles and the historical settings in which they operated. They are both very difficult philosophers, and it is one of the many virtues of this sparkling book that they are made as accessible to the general public as they can be. Even so, the relevant passages will still be rather hard going for readers new to the ideas. Particularly close reading is required for chapter 16 near the end of the book, in which Stewart shows that Leibniz was entangled with Spinozism even when the differences between the two men's philosophies appear at their starkest.
As for the description of their personalities, they come to life in the most vivid way. The different sides of Spinoza are arrestingly described, as is the vanity, the restless and pushy worldliness and the basic insecurity of Leibniz, of whose varied secular career we are also given an entertaining account.
Leibniz was a polymathic and imaginative thinker, but Stewart's picture of him leaves one with the impression that, especially in his relationship with Spinoza, he was thoroughly duplicitous: flattering in his correspondence with him, but denouncing him in letters written to others. Stewart plays fair and provides what excuses he (and other authors) can find for Leibniz (pp. 114 to 119), but there is no doubt that Spinoza emerges from his pages as much the more admirable, honest, austere and courageous human being.
In 1670 Spinoza had published his Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, which caused such a European-wide storm of obloquy that he had arranged for his other books and papers to be published only after his death. Among these papers were letters he had received from Leibniz, and Leibniz was now terrified that their publication would compromise him: not simply because he had been in correspondence with Spinoza after the publication of the Tractatus and had even visited him for several days in 1676, just four months before Spinoza's sudden death, but also because Leibniz's papers show a constant battle within himself: there was so much of Spinoza's thought which he found persuasive, and yet so much which he found undermining not only the orthodox idea of God, but, he thought, the very basis of morality. In his later writings Leibniz occasionally confessed that he had once been tempted by Spinoza's ideas, but it became an obsession with him to brand Spinoza as a dangerous atheist and to ascribe non-existent Spinozist views to such as Isaac Newton and John Locke.
Leibniz thought that belief in a personal and benevolent God and in the immortality of the soul was necessary for human well-being and happiness; but, as Stewart several times points out, it was the beliefs themselves rather than their truth that mattered to him. He does not in fact seem to have been a very religious person himself: his faithful assistant Eckhart said that in the 19 years during which they worked together, he rarely saw him in church and never saw him take communion. And on his deathbed he refused the Last Sacraments.
I cannot help coming away from this book with the idea that not only was Spinoza by far the greater personality of the two, but also the clearer thinker. In grappling with Spinoza, Leibniz had to engage in intellectual fancies and contortions that seem to me totally absurd. I am probably missing something, since Bertrand Russell would call Leibniz "one of the supreme intellects of all time", and Stewart's own concluding pages express a sympathy for what Leibniz was all about which I cannot share.
The irony is that Leibniz was so frightened by the unorthodoxy of his own "solution" in La Monadologie that, like Spinoza in the case of his Ethics, he did not dare to have it published in his life-time. Curiously, Stewart does not mention that. And, describing the pathos of Leibniz's last years, Stewart suggests that at the end of his life he had come to the conclusion that this was not, after all, the best of all possible worlds.
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147 of 157 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Spinoza's Divorce Lawyer, September 13, 2006
What "Amadeus" did for Salieri, Stewart's book does for Leibniz. If Spinoza and Leibniz were in the midst of a bitter divorce, this is precisely the sort of book Spinoza's attorney would come up with. Here's the method...
*Dig up as much dirt as you can on Leibniz's character, make him look like a scoundrel and a buffoon, and when one has no proof, either make insinuations or "leave open" the question as to whether Leibniz was guilty of additional flaws. In the most comical instance, Stewart insinuates ever-so-vaguely that Spinoza may have been poisoned to death by a certain rascal Schuller, whose ties of friendship with Leibniz may implicate the latter in Spinoza's death in ways that are never quite specified. Stewart also "leaves open" the question of whether Leibniz had a homosexual lover, though he never leaves it open in the case of the equally ladyless bachelor Spinoza, his hero.
*Portray Spinoza as handsome and Leibniz as physically repugnant. We hear repeatedly that Leibniz looked like a dork when he walked, that his prematurely balding head bulged with some sort of disgusting protuberance, and finally read a strangely amused description of a "discharge of gas" in the philosopher's last moments that gave his attendant a headache. (Stewart also enjoys making fun of the outdated fashion sense of a 70-year-old man, which is one of the cheapest of cheap shots.)
*Admit in passing that Leibniz was "the last great universal genius" and "one of the two greatest philosophers of the 17th century", but then don't dwell on the reasons for either of these phrases being in widespread use. Chuckle as his machines break down and his efforts at court fall flat. Expose his philosophy as a "reactive" medieval relic haunted at every layer by an obsession with Spinoza, whom he can never hope to equal.
*On the flimsiest of evidence, assert that Spinoza hurt Leibniz's feelings so badly during their one personal meeting that Leibniz was filled with suppressed rage for the remainder of his life. Concoct an Oliver Stone-like scene of Leibniz jumping up from the table, enraged at Spinoza and demanding recognition from him. (Come on, you know that one's going to make it into the final film script.)
*As an additional technique, don't put all the criticisms in your own mouth, but let others do some of the work for you. Cite Voltaire to make Leibniz look stupid ("can a drop of urine really contain an infinite number of monads?") when the same drop of urine would also take on equally remarkable powers in the philosophy of Spinoza, Stewart's hero.
*Psychologize Leibniz as "needy," while avoiding any psychologization of Spinoza's actions. Let these shine in pure Platonic nobility.
Despite all of the above, I did enjoy some aspects of Stewart's book. It's always interesting when someone brings a lost historical period to life. What I missed in his book is any trace of Leibniz the "universal genius" and "great philosopher" to whom Stewart refers in intermittent throwaway phrases. Instead, what we find is Leibniz the awkward, gangling suck-up and pathological liar whose doctrines are presented as nothing more than a vulgarized sell-out of the more radical philosophy of Spinoza. Stewart's sense of humor also tends toward the corny: abundant desktop computer metaphors and cheap plays for laughs whenever Leibniz's words coincide with the lyrics to present-day popular songs.
One could easily imagine the inverse to this book, written by a Leibniz fan with a grudge against Spinoza: "The Diplomat and the Outcast", perhaps. Spinoza could be presented as an antisocial invalid enfeebled by tuberculosis, cribbing his main ideas from Descartes, too cowardly to publish his own major work, obsessed due to "neediness" with provoking the religious authorities and getting a reaction out of them, and far behind his contemporaries such as Huygens, Leibniz, and Newton in generating concrete mathematical or scientific discoveries. In parallel, Leibniz could be portrayed as balanced and erudite, a philosophical revolutionary who managed to retrieve Aristotelian ideas for modern philosophy in a way that escaped both Descartes and Spinoza, co-inventor of the most important method in modern mathematics, someone who united theory and praxis and tried to engage in responsible political action rather than living a hermetic existence at home, and a generous man of the world willing to share his ideas with hundreds of correspondents across the continent. Such a book would teach us much about Leibniz and little about Spinoza-- the opposite of Stewart's problem.
There is a reason that Spinoza and Leibniz are both so highly regarded for their intellectual achievements. Stewart gives us the most flattering possible portrait of Spinoza, while making Leibniz look even more stupid and ridiculous than Voltaire already tried to make him look (at least Voltaire didn't tell us that Leibniz was ugly and a geek, as Stewart with his high school cruelty does). It's a shame that he has so little sympathy for Leibniz, since this could have been a dramatic story of Spinoza's hitherto unrecognized lifelong influence on Leibniz's thought.
Despite extensive background research (and he did come up with some fascinating tales that I've never heard of before), Stewart shows a lack of philosophical balance or depth. He also falls into occasional research howlers (such as claiming that Descartes thought the *pituitary* gland was the seat of the soul, when it was actually the pineal gland; Descartes specifically denied that it could be the pituitary).
I enjoyed reading the book in the same way that I enjoy watching "Amadeus" from time to time. It brings a certain lost historical period to life, and in that sense is refreshing. It might even be fun to see Stewart's book turned into a film, so we could catch periodized glimpses of Amsterdam canals and Leibniz's baroque clothing. But no one takes "Amadeus" seriously either as music history or as musicology, and no one should take Stewart's book seriously either as intellectual history or as philosophy.
Like most dust-jacket materials, the captions beneath author photos are generally drawn from material provided by the author. Stewart's caption tells us, with remarkable self-congratulation, that he has "retired in order to pursue a life of contemplation." I was surprised not to read that he's grinding lenses for a living.
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127 of 137 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The history of philosophy as it ought to be, February 19, 2006
When I was thrown out of my Philosophy course at Warwick University, my defiant riposte to my tutors was that philosophy should be taught in its historical context, not merely as an unmotivated collection of systems of ideas. This was interpreted at the time as juvenile Marxism, but Matthew Stewart brilliantly illustrates how philosophy only makes sense when construed as the systems created by brilliant individuals to make sense of the great issues of their day.
In the case of Spinoza and Leibniz, Stewart shows how those great issues - faith and transcendence vs. the significance of existence within (secular) modernism - have defined the terms of debate from the 17th Century through to the present day.
This is a book on many levels. Most immediately, in interwoven chapters, we are told the lives of these two extraordinary individuals: birth through death. Both Spinoza and Leibniz were observing and conceptually shaping the Age of Reason, but from very different social positions.
From these historical and intellectual foundations, Stewart explains with the greatest clarity the philosophies of the two men: Spinoza's Ethics, and Leibniz's Monadology. If only it had been explained like this at University!
Finally, Stewart critically situates these two systems as the purest opposed responses to post-medieval modernisation, one welcoming it, the other seeking to maintain the place of faith and spirit over a putative reduction of everything to the mundane. These remarks do not begin to do justice to the sophistication of Stewart's analysis. I could add that his witty and irreverent style makes it a joy to read, but perhaps this book has been praised enough!
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