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Persecution and the Art of Writing Paperback – October 15, 1988
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- Print length214 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press
- Publication dateOctober 15, 1988
- Dimensions8.52 x 5.57 x 0.53 inches
- ISBN-100226777111
- ISBN-13978-0226777115
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- Publisher : University of Chicago Press; Reprint edition (October 15, 1988)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 214 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0226777111
- ISBN-13 : 978-0226777115
- Item Weight : 10 ounces
- Dimensions : 8.52 x 5.57 x 0.53 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #292,952 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #587 in Political Philosophy (Books)
- #832 in Literary Criticism & Theory
- #897 in History & Theory of Politics
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The particular work of Spinoza discussed was an attempt "to refute the claims which had been raised on behalf of revelation throughout the ages." (p. 142). Studying the Treatise is primarily philosophical because "the issue raised by the conflicting claims of philosophy and revelation is discussed in our time on a decidedly lower level than was almost customary in former ages." (pp. 142-3). Later it is admitted that Spinoza's own age did not have Spinoza's books to discuss. "The only book which he published under his own name is devoted to the philosophy of Descartes." (p. 152). "But Spinoza, who wrote for posterity rather than for his contemporaries, must have realized that the day would come when his own books would be old books." (p. 153). My own understanding of Spinoza is not helped by the fact that the longest quotations, in note 2 on page 143 and note 19 on page 153, are in latin. Note 13 on page 149 quotes Carl Gebhardt (Spinoza. OPERA, vol. II, p. 317) in German. I thought I was going to be able to understand it best when Strauss wrote, "To ascertain how to read Spinoza, we shall do well to cast a glance at his rules for reading the Bible." (p. 144). Philosophy itself might demand that the most modern conclusion on that effort would be: "For the same reason it is impossible to understand the Biblical authors as they understood themselves; every attempt to understand the Bible is of necessity an attempt to understand its authors better than they understood themselves." (p. 148). In the case of the Bible, the idea of revelation offers the consolation to people who never wanted to be considered its authors that the book was written by someone else, as the angel who dictated the Koran to its prophet is the ultimate target of the book THE SATANIC VERSES by Salman Rushdie in the most modern comic edition of this conflict. The only escapes which Spinoza would offer is "to potential philosophers, i.e., to men who, at least in the early stages of their training, are deeply imbued with the vulgar prejudices: what Spinoza considers the basic prejudice of those potential philosophers whom he addresses in the Treatise, is merely a special form of the basic prejudice of the vulgar mind in general." (p. 184). Given the facts of life for most people, this seems to be particularly bad news for the political, which could use a few intellectual connections.
I'll quote it at length-spoiler alert-
While former generations publicly denounced Spinoza as an atheist, today it is almost a heresy to hint that, for all we know
prior to a fresh investigation of the whole issue, he may have been an atheist. This change is due not merely, as contemporary
self-complacency would have it, to the substitution of historical detachment for fanatical partisanship, but above all to the fact
that the phenomenon and the causes of exotericism have almost completely been forgotten.
To return to the Treatise, we are now in a position to state the true reasons for certain features of that work which have not
yet been sufficiently clarified. The Treatise is addressed to Christians, not because Spinoza believed in the truth of Christianity
or even the superiority of Christianity to Judaism, but because "ad captum vulgi loqui" means "ad captum hodierni vulgi loqui"
or to accommodate oneself to the ruling opinions of one's time, and Christianity, not Judaism, was literally ruling. Or, in other
words, Spinoza desired to convert to philosophy "as many as possible," and there were many more Christians in the world
than there were Jews...at any rate, Spinoza was a "Christian with the Christians" in exactly the same way in which, according
to him, Paul was "a Greek with the Greeks and a Jew with the Jews." It is the political and social power of Christianity which
also explains why the subject matter of the Treatise is Jewish rather than Christian. It was infinitely less dangerous to attack
Judaism than to attack Christianity, and it was distinctly less dangerous to attack the Old Testament than the New. (p. 189-190)
What's fascinating is that Strauss himself is a philosopher who converted many Jews and Christians to his form of philosophy,
a true reading of the ancients and moderns in many respects, and is believed to be an atheist. So when he's writing about
Spinoza, a lot of it applies to himself, but Strauss' atheism was less hidden because presumably less dangerous in his time.
But since Strauss must have used exoteric writing, what is it that he wasn't able to state explicitly?
I like it.





