Customer Reviews

Spinoza: Complete Works

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Scholars, students and those who just plain love philosophy should be overjoyed at the release of this volume of Spinoza's collected works, the first in English. The Shirley translation is excellent, easy to follow, and much smoother in general than E.M. Curley's Cartesian-anchored exposition. Until this volume came along I was using three different editions of his collected works. I cannot describe the pleasure of having all Spinoza's works at my fingertips. It pays to be able to consolidate.

The Hackett edition is study, the pages quite thick considering such a lengthy volume, and sewn with thread, ensuring a lasting product, especially comforting considering the price asked. Still, it is a bargain when compared with the Curley edition published by Princeton. Volume Two of that edition has not even been published, though Volume One has been out for quite some time. If you love Spinoza and want to consolidate your collection into one volume, you can't go wrong with the Shirley translation.

I heartily recommend this edition to every true Spinozist, for several reasons. First, it contains every significant work by Spinoza, even his Hebrew grammar and his study of Descartes' philosophy. Second, it is a surprisingly compact book, considering that it is nearly 1,000 pages long. Finally, and most important, Samuel Shirley's translations are delightfully readable. The book is ably annotated, with a short introduction.

The paper flyleaf is fragile, so if you are going to carry the book around with you, I suggest investing in a cover for it. (This book is not cheap, after all, and you must protect your investment.)

Another Amazon reviewer has commented on the excellence of this edition, and the great convenience of having all of Spinoza's work in one volume.
Spinoza is generally acknowledged to be one of the major Western philosophers. Will Durant said of him that he was the only great philosopher who actually lived in accordance with his teaching.
My own somewhat mixed feelings in regard to him relate to the fact that he was the first great Biblical critic, the one who seemingly showed so many contradictions in the text. And that he too was driven from the Jewish community of Amsterdam.
My theological quarrel with him is based on my own belief in the Biblical personal conception of G-d. This conception was of course denied by Spinoza who saw the Divine as in some sense the Nature of Nature itself. Spinoza was God- intoxicated in the way that a latter day student of his , Einstein was, in that he saw in the very structure and laws of Nature, the Divine itself.
Most complete works of great intellectual and literary figures contain much which no one will ever read except perhaps scholars in the field. Spinoza does not have a vast opus, but most of his readers will know him through only one small work, the work which gives the essence of his philosophical thought, "The Ethics' My guess is that few read the theological work today, or even Spinoza's political thought.
Nonetheless a complete works is a wonderful opportunity for any reader. One can find little corners of insight all one's own. One can skim through and come upon hidden treasures in ideas. This is especially so with Spinoza.
A ' complete works ' of this kind is thus likely to be a very valuable edition to the library of anyone concerned with philosophy , wisdom and the understanding of the history of human thought.

Hackett generally produce very good editions of the works of the major Western philosophers. This edition of Spinoza includes his 'ethics' and other key works, including his essays on theology and philosophy and his 'Theological-Political' treatise.

Spinoza is rightly said to be a pantheist, in the sense he didn't believe in the transcendant God of Christianity, Islam and Judaism. In fact Spinoza is bitterly critical of all three of these religions (especially Judaism and Christianity) because in his view they made preposterous and ridiculous claims which could not be supported by reason or science. For this, he was hated as an 'atheist' by Christians and Jews and was excommunicated from his family synagogue (he had been born a Jew).

But, at the same time it is perfectly correct to call him a 'God-intoxicated man', and of the great modern Philosophers between Descartes and Kant, he offers in my view the most profoundly beautiful religious and philosophical image of the cosmos and all that is in it.

Spinoza believes there is ultimately really only one and only one reality, which he calls God. God in Spinoza's view is a single, perfect, eternal and infinite Being, of which our universe is but one 'mode.' God because of his infinity has infinite modes, or infinitely many ways of being existent. We, or rather our universe and our minds, are simply two modes of this perfect substance which is Reality.

Spinoza's grand thought comes close to the One of the Neo-Platonists or the Brahman of Hindu philosophy, and he would probably read the Upanishads with some delight (though he would attack Hindu religion). In a way the way we see the world is an illusion, including our belief that we have free will. Spinoza is also a rigid determinst, and he constructs a fascinating examination of the human mind and its inner drives and motives which in many ways anticipates Nietzsche and Freud.

For Spinoza, the highest happiness in this life is to love and contemplate God. For Spinoza, this love is not emotional but intellectual. He felt it was absurd (as Christians believed) that God was like a personal father who loves us and favours us with his providence; but it was the highest and most beautiful thing to love God, the most perfect thing, with the mind. Indeed because our own mind is one of God's modes, a part of us is eternal in this sense and by contemplating God and our mind, we partake in the eternal.

Spinoza also wrote a brilliant critical study of the Bible, pioneering the method of scientific historical criticism which would later dominate 18th and 19th century Christian scholarship and would pave the way for our modern concepts of scientific history, which are applied to all things including sacred texts. He showed many flaws and absurdities of the time, and also believed Moses could not have written the Pentateuch in the way as traditionally believed.

Unfortunately Spinoza's philosophy was not without its flaws. In some ways his agressive criticism of religion and the mystical accelerated the hostile break between science, philosophy and religion which proceeded in the 17th century onwards and was effectively complete in the West by the 20th century. While striving for unity in every aspect of his thought, Spinoza had a rather cold and bleak view of nature and of animals, feeling only humans mattered morally and creatures could not feel real pain. And, his somewhat dogmatic approach to philosophy paved the way for Kant's extreme reaction against metaphysics, and its pretensions to know All.

Yet Spinoza has had a very important influence on many great Philosophers and even scientists such as Einstein. Indeed, Einstein himself probably had Spinoza's God in mind when he said 'Science without religion is lame' and 'The Lord is subtle, but not malicious.' Today his most important legacy is his comprehensive vision of all things as a single unity, a view which we can use today in our contemplation of ourselves and our relation to Reality.

This is without a doubt the best $70 I ever spent. Shirley's translation is beautifully paced and fluid: one feels in the presence of a great and kind teacher who is patient and ultimately dedicated to the passing on of knowledge and wisdom. It seems almost unbelievable that Spinoza died at the age of fourty-four. He strikes me as being the consummate scholar, but imparts what he has learned with an almost fatherly and tender mixture of enthusiasm and restraint.

Spinoza deserves to be venerated alongside the likes of Aristotle, Newton, Einstein, and Sagan, as the author of what is without doubt the most humane theology ever conceived. Branded an atheist, and reviled by many, Spinoza's work is a beautifully wrought testament to the absolute necessity of the human capacity for awe and reverence, our primal, emotional need of communion with a higher power and a sense of place, purpose and belonging. The lesson to be learned from this master teacher, Baruch Spinoza, is that understanding is the key to happiness; that a proper and rational humility, in light of our tiny presence in this grand and magnificent universe, can be a continual source of joy and peace and happiness in our lives.

Physically, this book is a delight. The hard cover is rock solid and the binding perfect; the typeface is small-ish but readable, the pages are not translucent or gossamer-delicate, like my beautiful Hebrew-English Tanakh, but are sturdy and just right. I absolutely LOVE this book. I would have gladly paid twice or three times the money for it.