THE COURTIER AND THE HERETIC and over 360,000 other books are available for Amazon Kindle � Amazon�s new wireless reading device. Learn more

Quantity:

More Buying Choices

77 used & new from $4.25

Have one to sell? Sell yours here

Express Checkout with PayPhrase

What's this? | Create PayPhrase

Share with Friends

Share your own customer images

Search inside this book

Start reading THE COURTIER AND THE HERETIC on your Kindle in under a minute. Don�t have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here.

The Courtier and the Heretic: Leibniz, Spinoza, and the Fate of God in the Modern World (Paperback)

~ Matthew Stewart (Author)
Key Phrases: church reunion, secret philosophy, theocratic order, The Hague, Duke of Hanover, Spinoza's God (more...)

4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (39 customer reviews)

List Price:	$15.95
Price:	$10.85 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details
You Save:	$5.10 (32%)
	o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o

In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.

Want it delivered Tuesday, November 10? Choose One-Day Shipping at checkout. Details

38 new from $5.83 39 used from $4.25

Also Available in:	Our Price:	Other Offers:
Kindle Edition (Kindle Book) Kindle Edition (Kindle Book) $9.99 Available for download now. Published December 1, 2008	$9.99
Hardcover (annotated edition) Hardcover (annotated edition) Available from these sellers. Published January 9, 2006		67 used & new from $2.07
Paperback (Import) Paperback (Import) Available from these sellers. Published January 31, 2007		6 used & new from $17.30

Frequently Bought Together

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

Rousseau's Dog: Two Great Thinkers at War in the Age of Enlightenment (P.S.)

by David Edmonds

3.3 out of 5 stars (15) $12.71

Wittgenstein's Poker: The Story of a Ten-Minute Argument Between Two Great Philosophers

by David Edmonds

4.1 out of 5 stars (101) $10.88

The Management Myth: Why the "Experts" Keep Getting it Wrong

by Matthew Stewart

3.6 out of 5 stars (12) $18.45

A Discourse on Inequality (Penguin Classics)

by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

4.2 out of 5 stars (5) $9.95

Spinoza: Practical Philosophy

by Gilles Deleuze

5.0 out of 5 stars (2) $9.20

› Explore similar items

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. According to Nietzsche, "Every great philosophy is... a personal confession of its creator and a kind of involuntary and unperceived memoir.". Stewart affirms this maxim in his colorful reinterpretation of the lives and works of 17th-century philosophers Spinoza and Leibniz. In November 1676, the foppish courtier Leibniz, "the ultimate insider... an orthodox Lutheran from conservative Germany," journeyed to The Hague to visit the self-sufficient, freethinking Spinoza, "a double exile... an apostate Jew from licentious Holland." A prodigious polymath, Leibniz understood Spinoza's insight that "science was in the process of rendering the God of revelation obsolete; that it had already undermined the special place of the human individual in nature." Spinoza embraced this new world. Seeing the orthodox God as a "prop for theocratic tyranny," he articulated the basic theory for the modern secular state. Leibniz, on the other hand, spent the rest of his life championing God and theocracy like a defense lawyer defending a client he knows is guilty. He elaborated a metaphysics that was, at bottom, a reaction to Spinoza and collapses into Spinozism, as Stewart deftly shows. For Stewart, Leibniz's reaction to Spinoza and modernity set the tone for "the dominant form of modern philosophy"—a category that includes Kant, Hegel, Bergson, Heidegger and "the whole 'postmodern' project of deconstructing the phallogocentric tradition of western thought." Readers of philosophy may find much to disagree with in these arguments, but Stewart's wit and profluent prose make this book a fascinating read. (Jan. 2006)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

A mere footnote for most historians, the meeting in 1676 between Leibniz and Spinoza opens to a discerning eye the intellectual forces destined to reshape the entire Western world. Stewart supplies that discerning eye as he chronicles the events and arguments linking the illustrious German polymath to the controversial Dutch lens grinder. In refreshingly lucid terms, he explains the controversies surrounding Spinoza as the consequence of the radical religious and political doctrines he articulated in works fiercely debated throughout Europe. By highlighting the way Spinoza's metaphysics justified secular and democratic challenges to traditional regimes, Stewart also reveals the piquant irony in the way that metaphysics hypnotized the most brilliant of the status quo's defenders--Gottfried Leibniz, who first eagerly absorbed Spinoza's thought, then recognized in it a perilous threat to traditional beliefs in God and immortality. Because Spinoza's doctrines have won acceptance from the architects of the modern world even as Leibniz's traditional religious beliefs have persisted among many who inhabit that world, the drama Stewart recounts will rivet readers skeptical and devout alike. Bryce Christensen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

Paperback: 352 pages
Publisher: W.W. Norton & Co. (January 17, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0393329178
ISBN-13: 978-0393329179
Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (39 customer reviews)

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #244,275 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Surprise Me!

Inside This Book (learn more)

Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
church reunion, secret philosophy, theocratic order, privy counselor

Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
The Hague, Duke of Hanover, Spinoza's God, Royal Society, Surviving Spinoza, The Antidote, The Haunting, Antoine Arnauld, Clara Maria, The Return of the Repressed, God's Attorney, Egypt Plan, Georg Hermann Schuller, Henry Oldenburg, Elector of Mainz, Approaching Spinoza, Sun King, Harz Mountains, Friends of Friends, The Hero of the People, Baron von Boineburg, Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, Leibniz's End, Georg Ludwig, The Many Faces of Leibniz

Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Surprise Me!

What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

	80% buy the item featured on this page: The Courtier and the Heretic: Leibniz, Spinoza, and the Fate of God in the Modern World 4.2 out of 5 stars (39) $10.85
	11% buy The Management Myth: Why the "Experts" Keep Getting it Wrong 3.6 out of 5 stars (12) $18.45
	4% buy Wittgenstein's Poker: The Story of a Ten-Minute Argument Between Two Great Philosophers 4.1 out of 5 stars (101) $10.88
	3% buy Betraying Spinoza: The Renegade Jew Who Gave Us Modernity (Jewish Encounters) 4.2 out of 5 stars (39) $10.04

Explore similar items

Tags Customers Associate with This Product

(What's this?)

Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.

rationalism(5)

history(4)

early modern europe(3)

ethics(3)

philosophy(2)

modern(1)

morality(1)

spinoza(1)

See all 11 tags...

Customer Reviews

39 Reviews

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(0)

Average Customer Review

4.2 out of 5 stars (39 customer reviews)

Share your thoughts with other customers:

Create your own review

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

85 of 86 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A fascinating story brilliantly told, February 26, 2006

By	Ralph Blumenau (London United Kingdom) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

This review is from: The Courtier and the Heretic: Leibniz, Spinoza, and the Fate of God in the Modern World (Hardcover)

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.

Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)

124 of 132 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The history of philosophy as it ought to be, February 19, 2006

By	Nigel Seel (Andover, UK) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Courtier and the Heretic: Leibniz, Spinoza, and the Fate of God in the Modern World (Hardcover)

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!

Comment Comments (2) | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)

99 of 106 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Spinoza's Divorce Lawyer, September 13, 2006

By	Gyre Andrew Gimble "Gyro" (Eastern Hemisphere) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Courtier and the Heretic: Leibniz, Spinoza, and the Fate of God in the Modern World (Hardcover)

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.

Comment Comments (5) | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review

› See all 39 customer reviews...

Most Recent Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars A metaphysical detective story
The book's premise is a meeting that took place between Leibniz and Spinoza on November 18, 1676. The former is represented as perhaps the last vestige of scholasticism and its... Read more

Published 5 months ago by Sean O Nuallain

4.0 out of 5 stars Modern Thinkers
I enjoyed this book because it was an honest portrait of two men with the loftiest of ideas, and their difficulties in trying to apply those ideals to the messy and uncaring world... Read more

Published 5 months ago by T. Stevens

5.0 out of 5 stars Spinoza...a fly-on-the-wall perspective
This wonderful book gives the reader a great insight into the times and the mind of Spinoza. Later, others such as Ralph
Waldo Emerson, Albert Einstein and Eckhart Tolle... Read more

Published 16 months ago by Harold Gershowitz

5.0 out of 5 stars Worthy of a Go On The Big Screen of the Mind (from Ahadada Books)
To be frank, I loved this book primarily because of its re-embodiment of the philosophies of two of the greatest thinkers of the Enlightenment. Read more

Published 17 months ago by M. Hori

2.0 out of 5 stars Philosophy or Fiction?
Before reading Matthew Stewart's THE COURTIER AND THE HERETIC, I suggest reading "A Note on Sources", in the rear of the book sandwiched between the Notes and Bibliography... Read more

Published 20 months ago by Timothy J. Reed

2.0 out of 5 stars Through the eye of a pinhole
A wonderful idea for a book; cleaving all the ideas concerning god into two distinct categories--valiantly represented by two of the greatest rationalist philosophers of the 17th... Read more

Published 22 months ago by Golrab

4.0 out of 5 stars Philosophy for the Mass
The book is aptly named, except for the fact that it includes "the fate of God in the modern world". Read more

Published on October 16, 2007 by Christopher A. Sink

5.0 out of 5 stars Baruch Wins by a Knockout!
So many reviews already! Mine will be brief. Matthew Stewart's exegesis of Spinoza is brilliant, the clearest I've ever encountered, and should be taken as a challenge from the... Read more

Published on August 29, 2007 by Giordano Bruno

5.0 out of 5 stars Of Course We Should Care!
If you are honest enough to ask "why do I exist?" or "is there a God?" then you should care. These "old philosophers" affirm the enduring and ever-present tension between the... Read more

Published on August 18, 2007 by Clifford S. Stanford

3.0 out of 5 stars Do we really care what old philosophers have to say?
The book is quite readable for the layperson. It is historically interesting, especially the interplay of notables of the era. Read more

Published on May 18, 2007 by Richard F. Stageman

› See all 39 customer reviews...

.jsOffDisplayBlock { display: block; } .jsOffDisplayInline { display: inline; } .jsOffVisibility { visibility: visible; } .jsOnDisplayBlock { display: none; } .jsOnDisplayNoneBlock { display: block; } .jsOnDisplayNoneInline { display: inline; } .jsOnDisplayInline { display: none; } .jsOnVisibility { visibility: hidden; } .jqOnDisplayBlock { display: none; } .jqOnDisplayInline { display: none; } .jqOnVisibility { visibility: hidden; } .jqOnDisplayNoneBlock { display: block; } .jqOnDisplayNoneInline { display: inline; }

Customer Discussions

This product's forum

Discussion	Replies	Latest Post
No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight

Start a new discussion

Topic:

First post:

Receive e-mail when new posts are made

Prompts for sign-in

Guidelines

Active discussions in related forums

Discussion	Replies	Latest Post
religion Science speaks on God	490	4 minutes ago
religion Are we here to learn, or here to debate?	68	4 minutes ago
history Holocaust Denial Dissected	2790	5 minutes ago
history Human Biodiversity, history and modernity: Murray, Sailer, Derbyshire.	431	6 minutes ago
philosophy Question on Modal Logic Proof	0	17 hours ago
philosophy AN Whitehead P&R Question	6	22 hours ago
religious studies Cleric - the ultimate non-job in the world?	9	2 days ago