Share <Embed>

Buy New

$10.85

List Price: $25.95
Save: $15.10 (58%)

$10.85

Only 1 left in stock - order soon.

Ships from and sold by booksandbling.

Turn on 1-Click ordering for this browser

This item does not ship to France. Please check other sellers who may ship internationally.

Deliver to France

Added to

Unable to add item to List. Please try again.

Other Sellers on Amazon

Add to Cart

$14.00

Sold by: Little Red Book Store

Have one to sell? Sell on Amazon

Flip to back Flip to front

Listen Playing... Paused You're listening to a sample of the Audible audio edition.
Learn more

See this image

The Courtier and the Heretic: Leibniz, Spinoza, and the Fate of God in the Modern World Hardcover – January 9, 2006

by Matthew Stewart (Author)

76 customer reviews

See all 16 formats and editions Hide other formats and editions

Price

New from

Used from

Kindle

"Please retry"

$9.18

—

—

Hardcover

"Please retry"

$10.85

"Please retry"

$14.39

âA colorful reinterpretation. . . . Stewartâs wit and profluent prose make this book a fascinating read.ââPublishers Weekly, starred review

Philosophy in the late seventeenth century was a dangerous business. No careerist could afford to know the reclusive, controversial philosopher Baruch de Spinoza. Yet the wildly ambitious genius Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, who denounced Spinoza in public, became privately obsessed with Spinoza's ideas, wrote him clandestine letters, and ultimately met him in secret.

"In refreshingly lucid terms" (Booklist) Matthew Stewart "rescues both men from a dusty academic shelf, bringing them to life as enlightened humans" (Library Journal) central to the religious, political, and personal battles that gave birth to the modern age. Both men put their faith in the guidance of reason, but one spent his life defending a God he may not have believed in, while the other believed in a God who did not need his defense. Ultimately, the two thinkers represent radically different approaches to the challenges of the modern era. They stand for a choice that we all must make.

Frequently bought together

+

Total price: $35.87

These items are shipped from and sold by different sellers. Show details

Buy the selected items together

This item:The Courtier and the Heretic: Leibniz, Spinoza, and the Fate of God in the Modern World by Matthew Stewart Hardcover $10.85
Only 1 left in stock - order soon.
Ships from and sold by booksandbling.
$3.99 shipping
Nature's God: The Heretical Origins of the American Republic by Matthew Stewart Hardcover $25.02
Only 18 left in stock (more on the way).
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
FREE Shipping. Details

Customers who bought this item also bought

Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1

This shopping feature will continue to load items. In order to navigate out of this carousel please use your heading shortcut key to navigate to the next or previous heading.

Matthew Stewart

90

Hardcover
$25.02
Steven Nadler

12

Hardcover
$15.95
Dennis C. Rasmussen

27

Hardcover
$21.00
Steven Nadler

79

Paperback
$17.95
Steven Nadler

79

Hardcover
31 offers from $13.85
Rebecca Goldstein

84

Hardcover
$20.45

Sponsored products related to this item (What's this?)

Page 1 of 1Start overPage 1 of 1

Feedback

Jay Norry

Nobody is about to give up on life. It’s a good thing Somebody is there to show him the truth about his divine nature before it's too late.

7

Kindle Edition
$2.99
Feedback

Hourly History

Do you want to learn about Confucius? But don't have the time or patience for a 400-page book? You don't want to miss this!

18

Kindle Edition
$2.99
Feedback

Hourly History

Do you want to learn about John Wycliffe? But don't have the time or patience for a 400-page book? You don't want to miss this!

18

Kindle Edition
$2.99

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.

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

See all Editorial Reviews

Product details

Hardcover: 320 pages
Publisher: W. W. Norton; First Edition edition (January 9, 2006)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0393058980
ISBN-13: 978-0393058987
Product Dimensions: 4.2 x 1.2 x 9.2 inches
Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 76 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,151,950 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #900 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Professionals & Academics > Philosophers
- #2245 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Philosophy > History & Surveys
- #2434 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Philosophy > Religious

Would you like to tell us about a lower price?
If you are a seller for this product, would you like to suggest updates through seller support?

Be the first video

Your name here

Try the Kindle edition and experience these great reading features:

See Kindle Edition

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars

1 star (0%)

Write a customer review

See all 76 customer reviews

Top customer reviews

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

From nothing-burger to juicy steak

June 16, 2018

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Children prefer stories to explanations, a fact that has led thinkers to convey their views in poems, plays, and novels rather than treatises alone. Stewart, a serious thinker, follows suit by expressing his perspectives on modern (post-Machiavelli) philosophy by means of a story about a short meeting between two seminal philosophers. Exchanges between living philosophers of equal greatness are almost non-existent. Locke refused to have a "dialogue" with Leibniz, and in the Platonic dialogues Socrates always outclasses his interlocutors, except for Parmenides, who is far superior to the young Socrates. So an account about the interaction between two great minds naturally arouses curiosity among us children.

The story Stewart tells, however, is something of a nothing-burger. I don't want to spoil the non-ending, but fundamentally we don't know what went on between the two men, nor even how many days (or hours) they talked. Stewart is somewhat successful in building what scraps of evidence we have into an interesting narrative, and his speculations about what went on between the two are intriguing, but the real "story" is why the thought and way of life of these two men matters to us today.

Temperamentally and intellectually I've always been closer to Leibniz, whose major works I have read and reread, so I was skeptical about Stewart's initial depiction of the young Leibniz as something of a mendacious kiss-ass, as opposed to the long-suffering philosopher's philosopher, Spinoza. But read on and you find that Stewart gives a nuanced picture of both men: he shows Leibniz's Bodhisattva side as well as Spinoza's pride, ambition and possible atheism. The author also shows that while Leibniz may well have been a Spinozist in some sense--this continues to be debated--he was alarmed at what he considered a reductionist teaching that undermines common belief in the divine, including the immortal soul. Stewart puts both men in a larger context, showing how their philosophies are a response to basic problems in the dualism of Descartes, and also showing how two opposing streams of modern thought can be traced to them. In reading the story, for example, I became aware of how much Nietzsche was influenced by Spinoza, both agreeing with and reacting to him. After finishing the book--and this is the highest compliment I can give Stewart--I dusted off my old copies of Spinoza's works.

This stimulating book is a good gateway to early modern philosophy. As the (now) 76 reviews demonstrate, the nothing-burger turns out to be a very juicy steak for those who like to think upon philosophy and the philosopher's life.

One person found this helpful

Comment

Brilliance & modesty vs. brilliance and opportunism

October 31, 2015

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

I have read numerous books by and about Spinoza and, while doing so, became somewhat acquainted with Leibniz since he is frequently mentioned in books and articles about Spinoza. Other than what I what I was exposed to about Leibnitz as a result, I knew very little about him. Other reviewers have suggested that the author of The Courtier and the Heretic, Matthew Stewart, has a bias in favor of Spinoza and against Leibnitz. Those reviewers appear to allege that his bias calls into question Stewart's credibility regarding Leibniz. I have no way of assessing the validity of those allegations, but It is clear from reading this book that Stewart's conclusion is that Spinoza was motivated by a sincere, honest, and consistent belief in the theses presented in his various writings and that Leibniz was rarely sincere, honest, or consistent. Regardless, The Courtier and the Heretic provides a vivid picture of the powerful influence of religion and contentious environment present during the lifetimes of both Spinoza and Leibniz. If one is concerned that the Courtier and the Heretic is not a balanced look at these two brilliant men, that concern may be warranted. But it is also entirely possible, and maybe even probable, that whatever imbalance is represented is justified. Leibnitz, while a brilliant polymath, does seem to have been an almost unapologetic opportunist with more intellectual power than conviction. Whether this is an accurate description of Leibniz, his lasting influence pales in comparison to that of Spinoza, the latter the conclusion of a wide array of centuries of serious students of philosophy. The Courtier and the Heretic is very readable, thoughtful, and incisive. Recommended reading for anyone interested in learning more about two fascinating individuals who continue to be the subject of debate even to the present day.

4 people found this helpful

Comment

Customers who viewed this item also viewed

Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1

This shopping feature will continue to load items. In order to navigate out of this carousel please use your heading shortcut key to navigate to the next or previous heading.

Steven Nadler

79

Paperback
$17.95
Matthew Stewart

90

Paperback
$17.95
Matthew Stewart

64

Paperback
$13.99
Dennis C. Rasmussen

27

Hardcover
$21.00
Matthew Stewart

11

Hardcover
15 offers from $86.71
Roger Scruton

30

Paperback
$9.36

English United States

Conditions of Use
Privacy Notice
Interest-Based Ads
© 1996-2018, Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates