The God of Spinoza: A Philosophical Study [Paperback]

Richard Mason (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 28, 1999 | ISBN-10: 052166585X | ISBN-13: 978-0521665858 0

This book brings together Spinoza's fundamental philosophical thinking with his conclusions about God and religion. Spinoza was born a Jew but chose to live outside any religious community. He was deeply engaged both in traditional Hebrew learning and in contemporary physical science. He emerges not as a rationalist precursor of the Enlightenment but as a thinker of the highest importance in his own right, both in philosophy and in religion.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'... a fine contribution to our understanding of those aspects of Spinoza's thought.' Steven Nadler, British Journal for the History of Philosophy

' ... an important and stimulating book.' Philosophical Books

'This is a very good book ... This brave new theology still needs to be heard. Armed with a copy of the Ethics and Mason's book, we can begin to hear it effectively.' Scottish Journal of Theology

Book Description

This book is the fullest study in English to bring together Spinoza's fundamental philosophical thinking with his conclusions about God and religion. Spinoza was born a Jew but chose to live outside any religious community. He was deeply engaged both in traditional Hebrew learning and in contemporary physical science. He emerges not as a rationalist precursor of the Enlightenment but as a thinker of the highest importance in his own right, both in philosophy and in religion.

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press (July 28, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 052166585X
• ISBN-13: 978-0521665858
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,832,789 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Well done, March 21, 2001

By 

John S. Ryan "Scott Ryan" (Cuyahoga Falls, OH) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The God of Spinoza: A Philosophical Study (Paperback)

Richard Mason is a pretty sympathetic expositor of Spinoza, but he likes to get his digs in when he can. (Spinoza comes in, for example, for a little gentle ribbing on the question whether anyone can achieve blessedness without relying on Scripture. Mason suggests in a parenthetical comment that Spinoza may have thought he and Jesus were the only two people who could do so.)

Overall, this volume is an excellent exposition of Spinoza's thought about God and religion -- and it has some very interesting features. For one thing, there's a full chapter devoted to figuring out just what Spinoza thought of Jesus -- a much-neglected topic. For another, there's _another_ full chapter devoted to figuring out just what Spinoza meant by the eternality of the mind.

I find Mason very congenial on many points. For my money he outdoes both Edwin Curley _and_ Jonathan Bennett on some topics -- especially Spinoza's views on the nature of necessity. He also beats the heck out of Yovel on Spinoza's relations to religion. And at one point he offers a gentle corrective to nineteenth-century-idealistic readings of Spinoza (especially Joachim), arguing that Spinoza did think it was possible to know things short of the Absolute. (I think, by the way, that this is both correct and entirely consonant with idealism as it should be understood; in my view the British neo-Hegelians were a bit vulnerable on this point.)

Some readers may like his approach and its conclusion: that there isn't any point to digging around behind Spinoza's words looking for theological secrets; Spinoza meant just what he wrote. (Which means, among other things, that he wasn't trying either to found a new religion or to undermine any existing ones.) Straussians will disagree, of course, but frankly there seems to be little reason to apply persecution-and-the-art-of-writing standards to Spinoza's writings.

A nice addition to everyone's home Spinoza library.

6 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent discussion of Spinoza's background and metaphysics, August 3, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The God of Spinoza: A Philosophical Study (Hardcover)

This book is an excellent source, for those interested in the influence of the Jewish/Marrano background of Spinoza, but also for those interested in his metaphysics. The discussion on the attributes was very smooth.

0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars logic and Spinoza, September 4, 2009

By 

Francois M. Gagnon - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The God of Spinoza: A Philosophical Study (Paperback)

This is a readable account of Spinnoza's view on religion, but in my opinion, the Author is more interested in Logic than in Spinoza's thought. We are often served with a critic of one statement after another without any more. I have learn about religion and imagination, for instance, in Lorenzo Vinciguerra's Spinoza et le signe, Vrin, Paris, 2005.