Customer Reviews

Spinoza (Oneworld Philosophers)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Richard Popkin's short book is the best introduction to Spinoza on the market today, for students, academics, or those with a general interest in Western philosophy and intellectual history. It clearly explicates the more difficult aspects of Spinoza's philosophy, but more importantly, locates Spinoza's thought in his own time and context: a hybrid tradition of Jewish thought, millenarian politics, and seventeenth-century Cartesianism.

Popkin's work is also remarkably up-to-date, displaying familiarity with the latest international Spinoza scholarship. It is fair to the most current arguments, but displays a certain skepticism -- no surprise from this historian of skepticism -- to claims to have closed the book on the more controversial aspects of Spinoza's thought and legacy, chief among them his excommunication from the Amsterdam synagogue.

Finally, what is most striking and useful about this short book, is that Popkin's elaboration of Spinoza's life and context is not at the expense of showing the philosopher's continuing relevance to modern thought. Especially in contrast to other Spinoza introductory texts -- chief among them Roger Scruton's -- Popkin does not present Spinoza as a dead-end, and thus nothing more than a historical curiosity. Rather, he is a challenging and provocative thinker who repays continued reading. Readers of this book will be inspired to explore Spinoza's texts for themselves.

Richard Popkin's carefully researched book makes the reader realize that much of what he may have read or heard about Spinoza is really glib and uninformed, no matter how erudite the source might seem.
Popkin doesn't write polemically, but his precise attempts to document what we think we "know" about Spinoza cast a complex and surprisingly different light on the philosopher. Also surprising is the fact that Popkin's book is rather brief and easy to read. He is able to get to each of his points without needless embellishments, as he is a clear and straightforward writer.