Author: Rebecca Goldstein
Publisher: Schocken
ISBN: 0805242732
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 306
Book Description
Part of the Jewish Encounter series In 1656, Amsterdam’s Jewish community excommunicated Baruch Spinoza, and, at the age of twenty–three, he became the most famous heretic in Judaism. He was already germinating a secularist challenge to religion that would be as radical as it was original. He went on to produce one of the most ambitious systems in the history of Western philosophy, so ahead of its time that scientists today, from string theorists to neurobiologists, count themselves among Spinoza’s progeny. In Betraying Spinoza, Rebecca Goldstein sets out to rediscover the flesh-and-blood man often hidden beneath the veneer of rigorous rationality, and to crack the mystery of the breach between the philosopher and his Jewish past. Goldstein argues that the trauma of the Inquisition’ s persecution of its forced Jewish converts plays itself out in Spinoza’s philosophy. The excommunicated Spinoza, no less than his excommunicators, was responding to Europe’ s first experiment with racial anti-Semitism. Here is a Spinoza both hauntingly emblematic and deeply human, both heretic and hero—a surprisingly contemporary figure ripe for our own uncertain age.
Betraying Spinoza
Author: Rebecca Goldstein
Publisher: Schocken
ISBN: 0805242732
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 306
Book Description
Part of the Jewish Encounter series In 1656, Amsterdam’s Jewish community excommunicated Baruch Spinoza, and, at the age of twenty–three, he became the most famous heretic in Judaism. He was already germinating a secularist challenge to religion that would be as radical as it was original. He went on to produce one of the most ambitious systems in the history of Western philosophy, so ahead of its time that scientists today, from string theorists to neurobiologists, count themselves among Spinoza’s progeny. In Betraying Spinoza, Rebecca Goldstein sets out to rediscover the flesh-and-blood man often hidden beneath the veneer of rigorous rationality, and to crack the mystery of the breach between the philosopher and his Jewish past. Goldstein argues that the trauma of the Inquisition’ s persecution of its forced Jewish converts plays itself out in Spinoza’s philosophy. The excommunicated Spinoza, no less than his excommunicators, was responding to Europe’ s first experiment with racial anti-Semitism. Here is a Spinoza both hauntingly emblematic and deeply human, both heretic and hero—a surprisingly contemporary figure ripe for our own uncertain age.
Publisher: Schocken
ISBN: 0805242732
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 306
Book Description
Part of the Jewish Encounter series In 1656, Amsterdam’s Jewish community excommunicated Baruch Spinoza, and, at the age of twenty–three, he became the most famous heretic in Judaism. He was already germinating a secularist challenge to religion that would be as radical as it was original. He went on to produce one of the most ambitious systems in the history of Western philosophy, so ahead of its time that scientists today, from string theorists to neurobiologists, count themselves among Spinoza’s progeny. In Betraying Spinoza, Rebecca Goldstein sets out to rediscover the flesh-and-blood man often hidden beneath the veneer of rigorous rationality, and to crack the mystery of the breach between the philosopher and his Jewish past. Goldstein argues that the trauma of the Inquisition’ s persecution of its forced Jewish converts plays itself out in Spinoza’s philosophy. The excommunicated Spinoza, no less than his excommunicators, was responding to Europe’ s first experiment with racial anti-Semitism. Here is a Spinoza both hauntingly emblematic and deeply human, both heretic and hero—a surprisingly contemporary figure ripe for our own uncertain age.
Spinoza Against the Rabbis
Arguments Against the Christian Religion in Amsterdam
Author: Saul Levi Mortera
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789462980105
Category : Christianity
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
Based on manuscript EH/LM48D38 (Fuks 206) of the Ets Haim Library, Amsterdam.
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789462980105
Category : Christianity
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
Based on manuscript EH/LM48D38 (Fuks 206) of the Ets Haim Library, Amsterdam.
Spinoza: Liberator of God and Man & Against the Rabbis
Author: Benjamin Decasseres
Publisher: Underworld Amusements
ISBN: 9781943687244
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 194
Book Description
"(Spinoza's) ratiocination is deft and measurable persuasive; it will be found lyrically displayed in the DeCasseres book."-New York Times Celebrating the 300th birthday of his relative Benedict Spinoza (1632 - 1677) saw Benjamin DeCasseres release two volumes about the man and his work. The first was Spinoza: Liberator of God and Man in 1933, and the second was Spinoza Against the Rabbis in 1937. This new edition combines them both for the first time, newly typeset and designed.Written in the luminous, piercing style that has made Benjamin DeCasseres famous, you see in this book the mighty struggle of Spinoza with Intolerance, the serene pantheist at work polishing his lenses, and, above all, the interior of a mind, in eleven chapters, that is like an excursion of the Spirit of Man in high mental altitudes. Benjamin DeCasseres brings to the light in this book hitherto unknown aspects of the doctrines of Spinoza: his liberation of God from the shackles of anthropomorphism, his glorification of the Will-to-Power, and his divinization of the Ego of the individual man.In the chapter entitled "Anathema!" DeCasseres has with a dramatic power only equaled in the pages of Victor Hugo or Merejkovsky pictured the excommunication from the Jewish Church of Benedict de Spinoza.Spinoza, at last, lives in this book. For it is the drama of a great soul written by a man who has the blood of Spinoza in his veins. Benjamin DeCasseres (1873-1945) was an Ironist, Critic, Poet, Epigrammist, Polemicist, God. He announced his candidacy for mayor of New York as a "Cubist Candidate" in 1913, vowing to "legalize human frailties," among other fine ideas. He was a comrade of H.L. Mencken, Charles Fort, James Huneker, George Sterling, Don Marquis and is a distant relative of Spinoza. His writing was published in a wide range of periodicals from Benjamin Tucker's radical anarchist Liberty, to the mainstream Life. He could be found in the pages of the New York Times, among other newspapers.
Publisher: Underworld Amusements
ISBN: 9781943687244
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 194
Book Description
"(Spinoza's) ratiocination is deft and measurable persuasive; it will be found lyrically displayed in the DeCasseres book."-New York Times Celebrating the 300th birthday of his relative Benedict Spinoza (1632 - 1677) saw Benjamin DeCasseres release two volumes about the man and his work. The first was Spinoza: Liberator of God and Man in 1933, and the second was Spinoza Against the Rabbis in 1937. This new edition combines them both for the first time, newly typeset and designed.Written in the luminous, piercing style that has made Benjamin DeCasseres famous, you see in this book the mighty struggle of Spinoza with Intolerance, the serene pantheist at work polishing his lenses, and, above all, the interior of a mind, in eleven chapters, that is like an excursion of the Spirit of Man in high mental altitudes. Benjamin DeCasseres brings to the light in this book hitherto unknown aspects of the doctrines of Spinoza: his liberation of God from the shackles of anthropomorphism, his glorification of the Will-to-Power, and his divinization of the Ego of the individual man.In the chapter entitled "Anathema!" DeCasseres has with a dramatic power only equaled in the pages of Victor Hugo or Merejkovsky pictured the excommunication from the Jewish Church of Benedict de Spinoza.Spinoza, at last, lives in this book. For it is the drama of a great soul written by a man who has the blood of Spinoza in his veins. Benjamin DeCasseres (1873-1945) was an Ironist, Critic, Poet, Epigrammist, Polemicist, God. He announced his candidacy for mayor of New York as a "Cubist Candidate" in 1913, vowing to "legalize human frailties," among other fine ideas. He was a comrade of H.L. Mencken, Charles Fort, James Huneker, George Sterling, Don Marquis and is a distant relative of Spinoza. His writing was published in a wide range of periodicals from Benjamin Tucker's radical anarchist Liberty, to the mainstream Life. He could be found in the pages of the New York Times, among other newspapers.
The First Modern Jew
Author: Daniel B. Schwartz
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 069116214X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 291
Book Description
Pioneering biblical critic, theorist of democracy, and legendary conflater of God and nature, Jewish philosopher Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) was excommunicated by the Sephardic Jews of Amsterdam in 1656 for his "horrible heresies" and "monstrous deeds." Yet, over the past three centuries, Spinoza's rupture with traditional Jewish beliefs and practices has elevated him to a prominent place in genealogies of Jewish modernity. The First Modern Jew provides a riveting look at how Spinoza went from being one of Judaism's most notorious outcasts to one of its most celebrated, if still highly controversial, cultural icons, and a powerful and protean symbol of the first modern secular Jew. Ranging from Amsterdam to Palestine and back again to Europe, the book chronicles Spinoza's posthumous odyssey from marginalized heretic to hero, the exemplar of a whole host of Jewish identities, including cosmopolitan, nationalist, reformist, and rejectionist. Daniel Schwartz shows that in fashioning Spinoza into "the first modern Jew," generations of Jewish intellectuals--German liberals, East European maskilim, secular Zionists, and Yiddishists--have projected their own dilemmas of identity onto him, reshaping the Amsterdam thinker in their own image. The many afterlives of Spinoza are a kind of looking glass into the struggles of Jewish writers over where to draw the boundaries of Jewishness and whether a secular Jewish identity is indeed possible. Cumulatively, these afterlives offer a kaleidoscopic view of modern Jewish cultureand a vivid history of an obsession with Spinoza that continues to this day.
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 069116214X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 291
Book Description
Pioneering biblical critic, theorist of democracy, and legendary conflater of God and nature, Jewish philosopher Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) was excommunicated by the Sephardic Jews of Amsterdam in 1656 for his "horrible heresies" and "monstrous deeds." Yet, over the past three centuries, Spinoza's rupture with traditional Jewish beliefs and practices has elevated him to a prominent place in genealogies of Jewish modernity. The First Modern Jew provides a riveting look at how Spinoza went from being one of Judaism's most notorious outcasts to one of its most celebrated, if still highly controversial, cultural icons, and a powerful and protean symbol of the first modern secular Jew. Ranging from Amsterdam to Palestine and back again to Europe, the book chronicles Spinoza's posthumous odyssey from marginalized heretic to hero, the exemplar of a whole host of Jewish identities, including cosmopolitan, nationalist, reformist, and rejectionist. Daniel Schwartz shows that in fashioning Spinoza into "the first modern Jew," generations of Jewish intellectuals--German liberals, East European maskilim, secular Zionists, and Yiddishists--have projected their own dilemmas of identity onto him, reshaping the Amsterdam thinker in their own image. The many afterlives of Spinoza are a kind of looking glass into the struggles of Jewish writers over where to draw the boundaries of Jewishness and whether a secular Jewish identity is indeed possible. Cumulatively, these afterlives offer a kaleidoscopic view of modern Jewish cultureand a vivid history of an obsession with Spinoza that continues to this day.
Spinoza's Heresy
Author: Steven Nadler
Publisher: Clarendon Press
ISBN: 0191529974
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 246
Book Description
At the heart of Spinoza's Heresy is a mystery: why was Baruch Spinoza so harshly excommunicated from the Amsterdam Jewish community at the age of twenty-four? In this philosophical sequel to his acclaimed, award-winning biography of the seventeenth-century thinker, Steven Nadler argues that Spinoza's main offence was a denial of the immortality of the soul. But this only deepens the mystery. For there is no specific Jewish dogma regarding immortality: there is nothing that a Jew is required to believe about the soul and the afterlife. It was, however, for various religious, historical and political reasons, simply the wrong issue to pick on in Amsterdam in the 1650s. After considering the nature of the ban, or cherem, as a disciplinary tool in the Sephardic community, and a number of possible explanations for Spinoza's ban, Nadler turns to the variety of traditions in Jewish religious thought on the postmortem fate of a person's soul. This is followed by an examination of Spinoza's own views on the eternity of the mind and the role that that the denial of personal immortality plays in his overall philosophical project. Nadler argues that Spinoza's beliefs were not only an outgrowth of his own metaphysical principles, but also a culmination of an intellectualist trend in Jewish rationalism.
Publisher: Clarendon Press
ISBN: 0191529974
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 246
Book Description
At the heart of Spinoza's Heresy is a mystery: why was Baruch Spinoza so harshly excommunicated from the Amsterdam Jewish community at the age of twenty-four? In this philosophical sequel to his acclaimed, award-winning biography of the seventeenth-century thinker, Steven Nadler argues that Spinoza's main offence was a denial of the immortality of the soul. But this only deepens the mystery. For there is no specific Jewish dogma regarding immortality: there is nothing that a Jew is required to believe about the soul and the afterlife. It was, however, for various religious, historical and political reasons, simply the wrong issue to pick on in Amsterdam in the 1650s. After considering the nature of the ban, or cherem, as a disciplinary tool in the Sephardic community, and a number of possible explanations for Spinoza's ban, Nadler turns to the variety of traditions in Jewish religious thought on the postmortem fate of a person's soul. This is followed by an examination of Spinoza's own views on the eternity of the mind and the role that that the denial of personal immortality plays in his overall philosophical project. Nadler argues that Spinoza's beliefs were not only an outgrowth of his own metaphysical principles, but also a culmination of an intellectualist trend in Jewish rationalism.
A Book Forged in Hell
Author: Steven Nadler
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 069113989X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 299
Book Description
When it appeared in 1670, Baruch Spinoza's Theological-Political Treatise was denounced as the most dangerous book ever published. Religious and secular authorities saw it as a threat to faith, social and political harmony, and everyday morality, and its author was almost universally regarded as a religious subversive and political radical who sought to spread atheism throughout Europe. Steven Nadler tells the story of this book: its radical claims and their background in the philosophical, religious, and political tensions of the Dutch Golden Age, as well as the vitriolic reaction these ideas inspired. A vivid story of incendiary ideas and vicious backlash, A Book Forged in Hell will interest anyone who is curious about the origin of some of our most cherished modern beliefs--Jacket p. [2].
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 069113989X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 299
Book Description
When it appeared in 1670, Baruch Spinoza's Theological-Political Treatise was denounced as the most dangerous book ever published. Religious and secular authorities saw it as a threat to faith, social and political harmony, and everyday morality, and its author was almost universally regarded as a religious subversive and political radical who sought to spread atheism throughout Europe. Steven Nadler tells the story of this book: its radical claims and their background in the philosophical, religious, and political tensions of the Dutch Golden Age, as well as the vitriolic reaction these ideas inspired. A vivid story of incendiary ideas and vicious backlash, A Book Forged in Hell will interest anyone who is curious about the origin of some of our most cherished modern beliefs--Jacket p. [2].
Spinoza: Theological-Political Treatise
Author: Jonathan Israel
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139463616
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 451
Book Description
Spinoza's Theological-Political Treatise (1670) is one of the most important philosophical works of the early modern period. In it Spinoza discusses at length the historical circumstances of the composition and transmission of the Bible, demonstrating the fallibility of both its authors and its interpreters. He argues that free enquiry is not only consistent with the security and prosperity of a state but actually essential to them, and that such freedom flourishes best in a democratic and republican state in which individuals are left free while religious organizations are subordinated to the secular power. His Treatise has profoundly influenced the subsequent history of political thought, Enlightenment 'clandestine' or radical philosophy, Bible hermeneutics, and textual criticism more generally. It is presented here in a translation of great clarity and accuracy by Michael Silverthorne and Jonathan Israel, with a substantial historical and philosophical introduction by Jonathan Israel.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139463616
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 451
Book Description
Spinoza's Theological-Political Treatise (1670) is one of the most important philosophical works of the early modern period. In it Spinoza discusses at length the historical circumstances of the composition and transmission of the Bible, demonstrating the fallibility of both its authors and its interpreters. He argues that free enquiry is not only consistent with the security and prosperity of a state but actually essential to them, and that such freedom flourishes best in a democratic and republican state in which individuals are left free while religious organizations are subordinated to the secular power. His Treatise has profoundly influenced the subsequent history of political thought, Enlightenment 'clandestine' or radical philosophy, Bible hermeneutics, and textual criticism more generally. It is presented here in a translation of great clarity and accuracy by Michael Silverthorne and Jonathan Israel, with a substantial historical and philosophical introduction by Jonathan Israel.
Strauss, Spinoza & Sinai
Author: Jeffrey Bloom
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781947857759
Category : Enlightenment
Languages : en
Pages : 331
Book Description
More than three centuries after Baruch Spinoza's excommunication from the Jewish community of Amsterdam, his legacy remains contentious. Born in 1632, Spinoza is one of the most important thinkers of the Enlightenment and arguably the paradigm of the secular Jew, having left Orthodoxy without converting to another faith. One of the most provocative critiques of Spinoza comes from an unexpected source, the influential twentieth-century political philosopher, Leo Strauss. Though Strauss was not an Orthodox Jew, in a well-known essay that prefaced his study of Spinoza, he critically examines modern philosophy's challenge to traditional religion. There he argues that while the Enlightenment had failed to decisively refute Orthodoxy, at the same time, Orthodoxy could only claim to believe its core tenets were true but could not claim to know they were true. Strauss leaves the question at an impasse; both the Enlightenment and Orthodoxy rest on axioms that neither side can fully prove or fully refute. Curiously, Strauss never asks Orthodox Jewish thinkers if his approach to defending Judaism against the claims of the Enlightenment is the same as theirs. This volume poses the question to a group of serious Orthodox Jewish thinkers in an attempt to find out if Orthodoxy has a better answer to the questions raised by Strauss than the one Strauss advanced on its behalf. The seventeen essays in this volume use a variety of approaches, drawing on traditional primary Jewish sources like Scripture, Talmud, and Midrash; medieval rationalists like Maimonides; Enlightenment-era Orthodox sources; Jewish mystical writings like Kabbalah and Chasidut; modern philosophical movements including postmodernism and analytic philosophy; and contemporary Jewish Bible interpretation. While the answers differ, what unites these essays is the willingness to take Strauss' question seriously and to provide "inside" answers, that is, answers given by Orthodox Jews. Much of modern thought tries to square the circle of how to live in a world without belief. The better question is whether it is possible to recover authentic religious belief in the modern world. This volume is an Orthodox Jewish attempt to answer that question, one that no serious person can approach with indifference.
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781947857759
Category : Enlightenment
Languages : en
Pages : 331
Book Description
More than three centuries after Baruch Spinoza's excommunication from the Jewish community of Amsterdam, his legacy remains contentious. Born in 1632, Spinoza is one of the most important thinkers of the Enlightenment and arguably the paradigm of the secular Jew, having left Orthodoxy without converting to another faith. One of the most provocative critiques of Spinoza comes from an unexpected source, the influential twentieth-century political philosopher, Leo Strauss. Though Strauss was not an Orthodox Jew, in a well-known essay that prefaced his study of Spinoza, he critically examines modern philosophy's challenge to traditional religion. There he argues that while the Enlightenment had failed to decisively refute Orthodoxy, at the same time, Orthodoxy could only claim to believe its core tenets were true but could not claim to know they were true. Strauss leaves the question at an impasse; both the Enlightenment and Orthodoxy rest on axioms that neither side can fully prove or fully refute. Curiously, Strauss never asks Orthodox Jewish thinkers if his approach to defending Judaism against the claims of the Enlightenment is the same as theirs. This volume poses the question to a group of serious Orthodox Jewish thinkers in an attempt to find out if Orthodoxy has a better answer to the questions raised by Strauss than the one Strauss advanced on its behalf. The seventeen essays in this volume use a variety of approaches, drawing on traditional primary Jewish sources like Scripture, Talmud, and Midrash; medieval rationalists like Maimonides; Enlightenment-era Orthodox sources; Jewish mystical writings like Kabbalah and Chasidut; modern philosophical movements including postmodernism and analytic philosophy; and contemporary Jewish Bible interpretation. While the answers differ, what unites these essays is the willingness to take Strauss' question seriously and to provide "inside" answers, that is, answers given by Orthodox Jews. Much of modern thought tries to square the circle of how to live in a world without belief. The better question is whether it is possible to recover authentic religious belief in the modern world. This volume is an Orthodox Jewish attempt to answer that question, one that no serious person can approach with indifference.
The Philosophers and the Bible
Author: Antonella Del Prete
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004471952
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 317
Book Description
An innovative perspective on the relationship between philosophy and the Bible. The early modern philosophers’ interpretations of the Scriptures allow deciphering the breeding ground of the freedom of philosophizing, the theological-political debate, and the new conception of nature.
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004471952
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 317
Book Description
An innovative perspective on the relationship between philosophy and the Bible. The early modern philosophers’ interpretations of the Scriptures allow deciphering the breeding ground of the freedom of philosophizing, the theological-political debate, and the new conception of nature.