Yitzhak Y . Melamed | Johns Hopkins University (original) (raw)

Videos by Yitzhak Y . Melamed

In this paper I trace the development of Spinoza's attitude toward the concept of accidents, from... more In this paper I trace the development of Spinoza's attitude toward the concept of accidents, from its early acceptance in the works of the young Spinoza and the first drafts of the Ethics, till its banishment in his later works. I attempt to point out the original sin which brought about the accidents' fall from Spinoza's paradise.

213 views

Conversation with Dr. Yoram Stein at the Levisson Institute, Amsterdam

90 views

Long audio interview at Kan Tarbut - the Israeli Cultural Radio - on Spinoza, the Herem, and seve... more Long audio interview at Kan Tarbut - the Israeli Cultural Radio - on Spinoza, the Herem, and several other things.

16 views

Audio interview. Nov. 30th, 2021

45 views

Books by Yitzhak Y . Melamed

Commercial Press, 2024

In this book, Yitzhak Y. Melamed offers a new and systematic interpretation of the core of Spinoz... more In this book, Yitzhak Y. Melamed offers a new and systematic interpretation of the core of Spinoza’s metaphysics. In the first part of the book, he proposes a new reading of the metaphysics of substance in Spinoza. Against Curley's influential reading, he argues that for Spinoza modes both inhere in and are predicated of God. Using extensive textual evidence, he shows that Spinoza considered modes to be God's propria. Against the claim that it is a category mistake to consider things as properties, he argues that the distinction between things and properties has been thoroughly undermined both in the early modern period and in contemporary metaphysics (in bundle theories, and some versions of trope theory). He goes on to clarify Spinoza’s understanding of infinity, mereological relations, infinite modes, and the flow of finite things from God’s essence. In the second part of the book, Melamed relies on this interpretation of the substance-mode relation and the nature of infinite modes and puts forward two interrelated theses about the structure of the attribute of Thought and its overarching role in Spinoza's metaphysics. First, he shows that Spinoza had not one, but two independent doctrines of parallelism. The Ideas-Things Parallelism stipulates an isomorphism between the order of ideas in the attribute of Thought and the order of things in nature. The Inter-Attributes Parallelism establishes an isomorphism among the order of modes in each of the infinitely many attributes. He shows that these two doctrines are independent of each other and that each has different implications. Relying on this clarification of the doctrines of parallelism, Melamed develops his final main thesis. Here he argues that, for Spinoza, ideas have a multifaceted (in fact, infinitely faceted) structure that allows one and the same idea to represent the infinitely many modes which are parallel to it in the infinitely many attributes. Thought turns out to be coextensive with the whole of nature. Spinoza cannot embrace an idealist reduction of Extension to Thought because of his commitment to the conceptual separation of the attributes. Yet, within Spinoza's metaphysics, Thought clearly has primacy over the other attributes insofar as it is the only attribute which is as elaborate, as complex, and, in some senses, as powerful as God.

Modality: A History (Oxford Philosophical Concepts), 2024

Hippos, usually, don’t fly. But can they, or must they stay strolling on earth? Numbers don’t bar... more Hippos, usually, don’t fly. But can they, or must they stay strolling on earth? Numbers don’t bark, nor can they bark. God cannot create a stone he cannot lift. We cannot change the past, but is our future necessary? – Our language is saturated with modal verbs and notions, and we can hardly think without employing the notions of necessity and possibility. But what are necessity and possibility? (We are not (necessarily) trying to philosophize before noon, but simply attempt to account for our use of words so intimately familiar to us). What do we really mean when we pronounce these magical words: ‘possible,’ ‘necessary,’ ‘necessarily,’ ‘impossible,’ ‘can,’ ‘must’ and their like?
It is not that we are not familiar with the claim that a proposition is necessary just in case it is true in all possible-worlds, and possible just in case it is true in at least one possible-world. But, as we are sure you will understand, we cannot explain possibility by employing the notion of possible-worlds, on a pain of obvious circularity. Think for a moment of a creature, highly intelligent, who has no modal notions: what would she gain if you tell her that a “proposition is possible just in case it is true in some possible world”?
We are also familiar with the suggestion that conceivability is a guide for possibility, but – regardless of the numerous other problems this, indeed interesting, suggestion must address – it would seem bizarre if one were to explain possibility through conceivability. Think again about our highly intelligent creature who is not familiar with modal terms: what would she gain were we to tell her that to be possible is to be conceiv-able?

Oxford Handbook of Jewish Philosophy

At the very conclusion of the eleventh chapter of his Theological Political Treatise, Spinoza att... more At the very conclusion of the eleventh chapter of his Theological Political Treatise, Spinoza attempts to explain why Paul-whom Spinoza appreciated more than any other Biblical figure -integrated philosophy in his preaching, whereas it is (according to Spinoza) precisely this primordial sin of mixing philosophy and theology that is the cause of so many political and religious problems. Spinoza is willing to excuse Paul – at least in part – by pointing out the different audiences to which Paul, on the one hand, and the rest of the apostles, on the other, preached. While Paul preached to the gentiles, or the Greeks who were devoted to philosophy, the other apostles preached to “the Jews, the despisers of philosophy [reliqui autem, qui Judaeis praedicaverunt, philosophiae scilicet contemtoribus].” Thus, Paul’s willingness to use philosophy in his preaching was simply an accommodation to his audience, the gentiles, who were profoundly absorbed in philosophical discourse.
But why is Spinoza calling the Jews “the despisers of philosophy”?

Oxford University Press

Spinoza’s recognition of the unpredictable fortunes of individuals, explicable through the interp... more Spinoza’s recognition of the unpredictable fortunes of individuals, explicable through the interplay between their intrinsic natures and their susceptibility to external causes, informs his account of political success and – what for him is the same thing – political virtue. Thus, a state may thrive because it has a good constitution (an internal feature), or because it was fortunate not to be surrounded by powerful enemies. Normally, however, it is the combination of both luck and internal qualities that determines the fate of things. What is true about the fate of states holds equally of the fate of other types of individual, both human and non-human. In a sense, even the fate of a theory is determined by the interplay between its intrinsic virtues, and mere historical luck.
A quarter century ago, shortly after I began my graduate studies in philosophy at Yale, I started thinking about writing a dissertation on Spinoza’s philosophy. A good and caring friend in my graduate cohort advised me against the idea, which he believed was tantamount to “professional suicide” given the oddity of Spinoza’s thought. Indeed, the environment of analytic philosophy in the mid- and even late-1990s was not particularly auspicious for the academic study of Spinoza. Spinoza was – rightly – considered as having little commitment to commonsense, and commitment to commonsense – the most stubborn of prejudices – was (and still is) considered by many a minimal requirement for entry into the club of “decent” philosophers. Yet, things have changed over the past twenty-five years. So much so, that recently a (non-Spinozist) early modernist colleague of mine complained to me about the futility of changing the description of an event he planned from a ‘Spinoza workshop’ into an ‘early modern philosophy workshop,’ since “one way or another, most of the submitted abstracts are going to deal with Spinoza.” Indeed, in many ways, the interest and intensity of the study of Spinoza’s philosophy in the Anglo-American world has eclipsed that of almost all other early modern philosophers, and we seem to be facing a circumstance in which Spinoza is gradually competing with, if not replacing, Kant as the compass of modern philosophy. One can list many reasons for these dramatic developments: from Spinoza’s radical naturalism, to his dismissal of the fairytales of anthropomorphic and anthropocentric religion – while Kant on these issues could at best be said to kick the ghosts from the front door while inviting them back as ‘ideas’ or ‘postulates of practical reason’ through the back door –- to his unequivocal rejection of the illusions of humanism. Still, we lack a full explanation of the recent Spinozist upheaval in North American philosophy.
On the other side of the Atlantic, Spinozism has been blossoming for more than half a century. The synthesis of Spinoza and Marx, developed and advocated by Louis Althusser and his disciples, was a major catalyst for this development. Equally important were several groundbreaking studies – by Martial Gueroult, Alexandre Matheron, and perhaps also Gilles Deleuze – that came out around 1970. The methods of Gueroult, Matheron, and Deleuze were quite diverse, and it may well be that it was precisely the diversity of their approaches that contributed to the explosion of Spinoza studies in France toward the end of the century.
Perhaps more than any concentration within the history of early modern philosophy, the field of Spinoza scholarship today resembles a plush, proliferating forest, diversifying and developing every single day. My aim in this volume is to invite the reader to explore some recently charted paths in these woods, and hopefully also to forge some new trails. Our understanding of Spinoza today is, I believe, much better than it was half a century ago, but as one can expect (and hope), new knowledge brings about new questions, sometimes even deeper and more difficult questions. The further we make our way through the Spinozistic forest, the more we realize that some of the expressions and terms we often summarily and innocently adopt from Spinoza’s texts are not that clear at all. Understanding what precisely Spinoza meant by expressions such as ‘having nothing in common [nihil commune inter se habent],’ ‘are one and the same [unum et idem sunt]’, ‘expressing [exprimere]’, ‘involving [involvere],’ and ‘conceiving [concipere]’ is absolutely crucial for an adequate grasp of the very core of Spinoza’s metaphysics. Yet, satisfactory answers to these simple questions are quite elusive, and for the most part, still desiderata.
The majority of the twelve studies collected in this volume have been written and published over the last decade. A few were written just for this volume. The common methodological attitude that most, if not all, of these studies reflect is the commitment to a bottom-up reconstruction of Spinoza’s philosophy where Spinoza’s text is both the point of departure and the constant touchstone against which any interpretation must be evaluated. I hope that applying these constraints to my interpretation of Spinoza helps me mitigate the – perfectly natural – tendency to impose my own philosophical predilections on his texts. I have a very strong interest in the philosophical value and relevance of Spinoza’s claims, but a genuine critical philosophical dialogue with a past philosopher must strive first to let the text (of the past philosopher) speak in its own voice without imposing our preconceived opinions and intuitions. Assuming that my intuitions and Spinoza’s intuitions must be the same is both naïve and highly misleading (as one can frequently observe in attempts to impose on Spinoza views which appear to some interpreter as “natural”). Similarly, reducing Spinoza’s claims to those held by his contemporaries is risking the imposition of intuitions held by Spinoza’s contemporaries on Spinoza, whereas we have plenty of evidence that Spinoza considered himself an iconoclast (just have a look at his not-very-discreet critique, if not full dismissal, of both Bacon and Descartes in Ep. 2), while in turn his contemporaries considered his views as bizarre.

Blackwell Companion to Spinoza: An Introduction, 2021

The invitation to edit this volume came almost five years ago. At the time, I asked the Blackwell... more The invitation to edit this volume came almost five years ago. At the time, I asked the Blackwell editors to postpone this project by a few years, in order to create a healthy distance between this volume and the Oxford Handbook of Spinoza which came out in 2017. During this long period – about as long as three elephant pregnancies – I have worked with several Blackwell editors: Charlie Hamlyn, Marissa Koors, Rachel Greenberg, Manish Luthra, and Mohan Jayachandran, and I would like to thank each and every one of them for their trust, care, and support.
There are several substantial editorial decisions I wish to explain here briefly. To facilitate diversity (of gender, geography, philosophical tradition, and stage of career development), I have decided to commission a larger number of chapters. This decision has also allowed the Companion to cover topics which are rarely addressed in similar publications. Yet, insofar as the length of the entire Companion had to be restricted within certain reasonable limits, most of the chapters had to be concise. Moreover, in order to recruit top scholars – who are frequently not tempted to write mere summaries and textbook entries – I invited contributors to use their chapters to develop new ideas and cutting-edge research, rather than merely summarize existing scholarship. Thus, the contributors were placed – by me – in an uneasy and challenging situation: they were asked to provide a brief overview of their subject matter while presenting serious, original scholarship, all in a rather short space. While I do not wish to break the Talmudic rule that a “baker may not attest to the quality of his own loaf,” my personal feeling is that this challenge has been met even better than I could have hoped, and I would like to thank my collaborators in this volume for their immense investment, talent, and intellectual generosity.

The first complete and annotated English translation of Maimon’s influential and delightfully ent... more The first complete and annotated English translation of Maimon’s influential and delightfully entertaining memoir

Solomon Maimon's autobiography has delighted readers for more than two hundred years, from Goethe, Schiller, and George Eliot to Walter Benjamin and Hannah Arendt. The American poet and critic Adam Kirsch has named it one of the most crucial Jewish books of modern times. Here is the first complete and annotated English edition of this enduring and lively work.

Born into a down-on-its-luck provincial Jewish family in 1753, Maimon quickly distinguished himself as a prodigy in learning. Even as a young child, he chafed at the constraints of his Talmudic education and rabbinical training. He recounts how he sought stimulation in the Hasidic community and among students of the Kabbalah—and offers rare and often wickedly funny accounts of both. After a series of picaresque misadventures, Maimon reached Berlin, where he became part of the city's famed Jewish Enlightenment and achieved the philosophical education he so desperately wanted, winning acclaim for being the "sharpest" of Kant's critics, as Kant himself described him.

This new edition restores text cut from the abridged 1888 translation by J. Clark Murray, which has long been the only available English edition. Paul Reitter's translation is brilliantly sensitive to the subtleties of Maimon's prose while providing a fluid rendering that contemporary readers will enjoy, and is accompanied by an introduction and notes by Yitzhak Melamed and Abraham Socher that give invaluable insights into Maimon and his extraordinary life. The book also features an afterword by Gideon Freudenthal that provides an authoritative overview of Maimon's contribution to modern philosophy.

Spinoza's Political Treatise constitutes the very last stage in the development of his thought, a... more Spinoza's Political Treatise constitutes the very last stage in the development of his thought, as he left the manuscript incomplete at the time of his death in 1677. On several crucial issues - for example, the new conception of the 'free multitude' - the work goes well beyond his Theological Political Treatise (1670), and arguably presents ideas that were not fully developed even in his Ethics. This volume of newly commissioned essays on the Political Treatise is the first collection in English to be dedicated specifically to the work, ranging over topics including political explanation, national religion, the civil state, vengeance, aristocratic government, and political luck. It will be a major resource for scholars who are interested in this important but still neglected work, and in Spinoza's political philosophy more generally.

Spinoza's Theological-Political Treatise was published anonymously in 1670 and immediately provok... more Spinoza's Theological-Political Treatise was published anonymously in 1670 and immediately provoked huge debate. Its main goal was to claim that the freedom of philosophizing can be allowed in a free republic and that it cannot be abolished without also destroying the peace and piety of that republic. Spinoza criticizes the traditional claims of revelation and offers a social contract theory in which he praises democracy as the most natural form of government. This Critical Guide to the Treatise presents new essays by well-known scholars in the field and covers a broad range of topics, including the political theory and the metaphysics of the work, religious toleration, the reception of the text by other early modern philosophers, and the relation of the text to Jewish thought.

Papers by Yitzhak Y . Melamed

Aleph: Historical Studies in Science and Judaism (forthcoming)

Harry Wolfson’s celebrated two-volume study of Spinoza – The Philosophy of Spinoza: Unfolding the... more Harry Wolfson’s celebrated two-volume study of Spinoza – The Philosophy of Spinoza: Unfolding the Latent Process of His Reasoning – appeared in 1934 with Harvard University Press. The book originated in a series of five studies Wolfson published in the Chronicon Spinozanum between 1921 and 1926. In the Chronicon, Wolfson announced that the studies published in the journal are instalments from a planned larger work, to be titled: “Spinoza, the Last of the Mediaevals: A Study of the Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata in the light of a hypothetically constructed Ethica More Scholastico Rabbinicoque Demonstrata.” In the preface to the 1934 book, Wolfson notes that the original title “had to be abandoned, as it did not seem advisable to have the title begin with the word ‘Spinoza’”. Thus, whatever stylistic reasons motivated Wolfson to amend the title, he was clearly not withdrawing from his view of Spinoza’s Ethics as being “More Scholastico Rabbinicoque Demonstrata.”

213 views

Conversation with Dr. Yoram Stein at the Levisson Institute, Amsterdam

90 views

16 views

Audio interview. Nov. 30th, 2021

45 views

Commercial Press, 2024

Modality: A History (Oxford Philosophical Concepts), 2024

Oxford Handbook of Jewish Philosophy

Oxford University Press

Blackwell Companion to Spinoza: An Introduction, 2021

Aleph: Historical Studies in Science and Judaism (forthcoming)

thetorah.com, 2023

A unique law in its ancient Near Eastern context, commentators such as ibn Ezra, Maimonides, and ... more A unique law in its ancient Near Eastern context, commentators such as ibn Ezra, Maimonides, and Calvin, living in a world of normative slavery, debated its reason, and whether it was theological or ethical.

Philosophie Magazine, 2023

Interview on the ban on Spinoza and the recent Spinoza film - "Spinoza: 6 Reasons for the Excomm... more Interview on the ban on Spinoza and the recent Spinoza film - "Spinoza: 6 Reasons for the Excommunication of the Philosopher."

Blackwell Companion to Spinoza, 2021

The very first line of Spinoza's magnum opus, the Ethics, states the following surprising definit... more The very first line of Spinoza's magnum opus, the Ethics, states the following surprising definition: By cause of itself I understand that whose essence involves existence, or that whose nature cannot be conceived except as existing [Per causam sui intelligo id, cujus essentia involvit existentiam, sive id, cujus natura non potest concipi, nisi existens]. As we shall shortly see, for many of Spinoza's contemporaries and predecessors the very notion of causa sui was utterly absurd, akin to a Baron Munchausen attempting to lift himself above a river by pulling his hair up. How can a thing cause itself into existence, if before the causal activity, the cause did not exist at all? Indeed, in one of his earliest works, Spinoza himself claimed: "No thing, considered in itself, has in itself a cause enabling it to destroy itself (if it exists), or to make itself [te konnen maaken] (if it does not exist)" (KV II 26| I/110/14-16). Moreover, in other early works, Spinoza refers to God as an "uncreated thing" (TIE §97) or "uncreated substance" (CM II 1| I/237/20), and not as a cause-of-itself as in the Ethics. What made Spinoza desert the common, traditional, view of God as the uncaused

Institute of Arts & Ideas, 2023

Overcoming the dogma that metaphysics must be dogmatic – i.e., inadequately motivated, and obscur... more Overcoming the dogma that metaphysics must be dogmatic – i.e., inadequately motivated, and obscure – was one of the main challenges for the rehabilitation of Spinozism. To the extent that contemporary analytic metaphysics is open to philosophythat is precise yet bold, and to the extent that it not any longer captivated by blind obedience to common sense, Spinozism can and will flourish. But there is another dogma – one which is not unique to current Anglo-American philosophy – the overcoming of which is likely to result in an even more radical upheaval.
Humanism – in a nutshell, the view that humanity occupies a uniquely prominent place in nature (if it is part of nature at all), and that the human perspective should be justly considered as constituting the boundaries and structure of reality – has deep philosophical roots, going back as far as Protagoras’ dictum: “Man is the measure of all things: of those that are - that they are, and of the things that are not - that they are not.” Humanism dominated the mainstream of modern philosophy, both before and after the advent of secularization. Figures as diverse as Pico Della Mirandola, Descartes, Leibniz, Hegel, and Sartre pledged their allegiance to its tenets. In a sense, we are all humanists today: we believe in the miracle of free will (even if we do not believe in any other miracle), we adore human dignity as an innate determination of all humans (war criminals included), and we do our best to point out allegedly unique features of human beings – consciousness, self-consciousness, unity of the self, freedom, rationality, the ability to act morally, or whatever – features that may help us
justify our attitude toward other animals, as mere things. Our default humanism functions as a genuine ideology: for the most part it is invisible, seamless, and taken for granted, and one needs to train herself in defamiliarization in order to recognize the arbitrariness of these deep-seated convictions.

Advances in Modern Logic 13 , 2020

This paper is an excerpt from a larger project that aims to open a new pathway into Spinoza's Eth... more This paper is an excerpt from a larger project that aims to open a new pathway into Spinoza's Ethics by formally reconstructing an initial fragment of this text. The semantic backbone of the project is a custom-made Spinozian model theory that lays out some of the formal prerequisites for more fine-grained investigations into Spinoza's fundamental ontology and modal metaphysics. We implement Spinoza's theory of attributes using many-sorted models with a rich system of identity that allows us to clarify the puzzling status of such logical principles as the Substitution of Identicals and Transitivity of Identity in Spinoza's thought. The intensional structure of our Spinozian models also captures his proposal that states of affairs can be necessitated or excluded by the essences of particular things, an essence-relative modality that should be of interest to philosophers who have sought to rehabilitate the concept of essence in contemporary analytic metaphysics.

Modality: A History. Oxford University Press, 2024

Spinoza’s determinism and necessitarianism earned him few sympathetic readers. For most of his ... more Spinoza’s determinism and necessitarianism earned him few sympathetic readers. For most of his contemporaries, necessitarianism was one of the major monstrosities of Spinoza’s system, and even among recent readers, many still tend to agree with Jonathan Bennett’s verdict that it is hard to do good philosophy if one assumes necessitarianism. Spinoza’s assertion that he “places freedom not in free decree, but in a free necessity” did not help relieve worried readers. Indeed, what could “free necessity” mean at all? Isn’t it a plain oxymoron?
That Spinoza was a strict necessitarian was pretty much taken for granted by almost all of his readers during the first three centuries since his death and the publication of his Opera Posthuma (1677). But this state of things has changed somewhat over the past half century, and a number of leading scholars have suggested that Spinoza’s commitment to necessitarianism is much less obvious than one would initially think.
A significant part of the current chapter will be dedicated to the recent debate about whether Spinoza was a strict necessitarian. The first section of the chapter will address the philosophy of modality among Spinoza’s medieval Jewish predecessors, and, primarily, in Hisdai Crescas (1340-1410), a bold and original, anti-Aristotelian philosopher. This section should both complement the discussion of modality in medieval Christian and Islamic philosophy in the previous chapters of this volume and provide some lesser-known historical background to Spinoza’s own engagement with modal philosophy. Following a section on Spinoza’s definitions of his main modal concepts and his understanding of contingency, I will turn, in the third section, to discuss the extent of Spinoza’s commitment to necessitarianism. The recent debate about whether Spinoza was a strict necessitarian has resulted in quite a few insights about Spinoza’s modal philosophy, but it has also detracted attention from some basic questions about Spinoza’s modal philosophy, and in the fourth and last section of the chapter, I will attempt to chart the foundational questions that still have been barely explored.
The primary aim of this chapter it to provide a survey and outline of the chief elements of Spinoza’s modal philosophy. Still, beyond the mere overview of Spinoza’s arguments (and some major scholarly debates), I will also advance two original theses. First, I will show that Spinoza makes a distinction between two notions of contingency, and that once this important distinction is observed, Spinoza’s various assertions about contingency turn out to be consistent. Secondly, I will discuss the text (E2a1) which is commonly taken to be the strongest and most stubborn proof against the reading of Spinoza as strict necessitarianism; I will show that the basic meaning of this text has been widely misunderstood, and that E2a1 is perfectly compatible with strict necessitarianism

The Routledge Companion to Jewish Philosophy

Hassidism [חסידות], the Jewish religious movement which emerged in East Europe in the mid-eightee... more Hassidism [חסידות], the Jewish religious movement which emerged in East Europe in the mid-eighteenth century, is still a vital force more than two and a half centuries later. During this period of time, Hassidism has exerted a decisive influence not only on the religious lives of millions of Jews, but also on the formation of modern Hebrew letters, culture, and music. The historical circumstances around the activity of the two founders of the movement, R. Israel Baal Shem Tov (acronym: the Besht) of Międzybóż (1700?-1760), and R. Dov Ber Friedman, the Great Maggid of Mezhrich (1710?-1772), are still shrouded in fog, though recent scholarly literature has made important headway in establishing historical facts. Hassidism was strongly opposed to the competing Jewish Enlightenment movement, the Haskalah, accusing members of Haskalah of having developed shame about their Jewish identity and of internalizing anti-Jewish stereotypes and prejudices. For this reason, it has been quite common among intellectual historians to assume that “with the exclusion of only a small number of exceptions” Hassidism was essentially opposed to the study of philosophy (Brown, forthcoming, *3). Arguably, the story is much more nuanced, and while most lay Hassidism usually avoided the study of philosophy, the intellectual leadership frequently engaged in this study and at times developed philosophical and theological positions that were far bolder than what one would find among the bourgeoisie of the German-Jewish Haskalah.
A proper and comprehensive study of the relationship between Hassidism and philosophy would require a volume of its own. In the limited space of this chapter, I shall focus on two crucial issues within the broader topic of Hassidism and philosophy. In the first part, I will study the Hassidic reception of Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed, widely perceived as the greatest work of Jewish philosophy, a work that was equally admired and derided as heretical from its very early dissemination in the late twelfth century. Against the common prejudice among scholars, I will show that throughout its history, numerous Hassidic leaders engaged in the study of the Guide, admired the book, and quoted it approvingly as an authoritative rabbinic source. In the second part of this chapter, I will move from the Hassidic reception of Maimonides’ philosophy to what I would argue is perhaps the most significant Jewish contribution to modern Western philosophy: the notion of acosmism, according to which only God truly and fully exists. I will show that through the mediation of Salomon Maimon (1753-1800) this bold notion was adopted from the school of the Maggid of Mezhrich and introduced into the systems of German Idealism. In my brief conclusion, I will attempt to provide a preliminary answer to the question of what allowed Hassidic masters to develop rather bold philosophical and theological views in spite of the conservative appearance of the movement.

Out of Exodus, 2024

Exodus, the deliverance of the ancient Hebrews from Egyptian slavedom, is an event laden with rel... more Exodus, the deliverance of the ancient Hebrews from Egyptian slavedom, is an event laden with religious and historical significance. But for Benedict de Spinoza (1632-1677), the ingenious Jewish-Dutch philosopher, the event was primarily of a political import, insofar as it designated the moment at which the Hebrews, now freed from the yoke of Egyptian oppression, “were no longer bound by any law to another nation, but were permitted to institute new laws for themselves, as they pleased” (Spinoza, Theological Political Treatise, Ch. 17| III/205/17). For Spinoza, the physical wilderness through which the Hebrews wandered for forty years should also be seen as a political desert, a no-land in which they were free from obligation to any sovereign or law. Spinoza (and Hobbes) would call this, a “State of Nature,” i.e., a state in which is no one is bound by any political establishment, and everyone has a right to whatever he, or she, has power to obtain.

Aeon Magazine, 2022

Medieval philosophical culture, despite all its problems, was significantly multicultural; Islami... more Medieval philosophical culture, despite all its problems, was significantly multicultural; Islamic, Jewish, and Christian authors frequently engaged with each other’s work, sometimes even collaborating. It is only we, today, who are creating a purely Christian narrative that excludes Jewish and Islamic authors from the philosophical discourse.

The Principle of Sufficient Reason: A History

The early modern period was the natural historical habitat of the Principle of Sufficient Reason,... more The early modern period was the natural historical habitat of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, i.e., the demand that everything must have a cause, or reason. It is in this period that the principle was explicitly articulated and named, and throughout the period we find numerous formulations and variants of the PSR and its closely related ‘ex nihilo nihil fit’ principle, which the early moderns inherited from medieval philosophy.
Contemporary discussions of these principles were not restricted to philosophy. “Nothing will come of nothing; speak again” old King Lear tells his daughter Cordelia at the beginning of Shakespeare’s celebrated tragedy, and in early modern science, conservation principles were the order of the day. Within philosophy, Malebranche stipulates that there cannot be an effect without a cause, and Berkeley motivates his idealism by an appeal to ‘ex nihilo nihil fit.’ Were we to try to provide an exhaustive survey the various formulations of the PSR in this period – including the weaker ones – we would be writing an encyclopedia. In fact, one wonders whether any early modern thinker was willing to accept a wholesale rejection of the PSR, i.e., a view which states that no fact requires an explanation (we will return to this issue in §5 while discussing critiques of the PSR). Moreover, the view that many – perhaps most – facts require an explanation seems to be tacitly assumed even by us today, in both our theoretical and colloquial discourse. For these reasons, this chapter will focus on two early modern philosophers who advocated very strong (i.e., virtually exceptionless) versions of the PSR: Benedict de Spinoza and G.W. Leibniz. Following a brief overview of Descartes’s restricted endorsement of the PSR, I will turn to discuss the central features of the PSR in the writings of Spinoza (§2) and those of Leibniz (§3). In the cases of each of these philosophers, we will examine carefully: (i) their main statements of the PSR, (ii) the scope they assign to the principle (i.e., what requires an explanation and what counts as an explanation), (iii) the modal strength they assign to the principle, (iv) the main implications they draw from the principle, (v) exceptions to the principle, and, finally, (vi) the justification of the principle. In §4, we will study a principle, complementing the PSR, namely, the assertion that everything and every fact must have an effect (or as Leibniz would put it: “nothing is sterile”).

Cambridge Spinoza Lexicon

Spinoza defines God at the very opening of the Ethics, and the definition (and its explication) u... more Spinoza defines God at the very opening of the Ethics, and the definition (and its explication) unfold in three successively elucidatory steps: “By God I understand a being absolutely infinite [ens absolute infinitum], i.e., a substance consisting of an infinity of attributes, of which each one expresses an eternal and infinite essence” (E1d6). ‘An absolutely infinite being,’ Spinoza’s first characterization of God, is spelled out in the rest of the definition; then, Spinoza adds an explicatio to the entire definition: “I say absolutely infinite, not infinite in its own kind; for if something is only infinite in its own kind, we can deny infinite attributes of it; but if something is absolutely infinite, whatever expresses essence and involves no negation pertains to its essence.” Throughout his philosophical career Spinoza plays with the precise formulation of this definition; its core remains pretty stable, though the small variants are quite interesting and might indicate attempts to explore alternative nuances (see, for example, KV II.1 (I/19); Ep. 2 (IV/7); Ep. 83 (IV/335)). Moreover, in his correspondence Spinoza also explains why he prefers this definition rather than the more common definition of God as ens perfectissimum; an adequate definition, claims Spinoza, should express the efficient cause of the thing defined, and the definition of God as ens perfectissimum fails to spell out God’s efficient cause (Ep. 60 (IV/271)).

Spinoza Cambridge Lexicon

Responding to Henry Oldenburg's request to clarify his views about the relation between God and N... more Responding to Henry Oldenburg's request to clarify his views about the relation between God and Nature (Ep. 71), Spinoza writes: "I favor an opinion concerning God and Nature far different from the one Modern Christians usually defend. For I maintain that God is, as they say, the immanent, but not the transitive, cause of all things" (Ep. 73 (IV/307)). In the Ethics, Spinoza does not define the notion of causa immanens, but we can easily retrieve the precise meaning of the term by scrutinizing E1p18d in which Spinoza proves that "God is the immanent, not the transitive, cause of all things [Deus est omnium rerum causa immanens; non vero transiens]." The proof relies on two claims Spinoza established earlier in the Ethics: that all things are in God (E1p15), and that God is the efficient cause

Cambridge Spinoza Lexicon, 2023

In a stark opposition to Descartes, Spinoza argues that existence pertains not only to the nature... more In a stark opposition to Descartes, Spinoza argues that existence pertains not only to the nature of every substance (E1p7), but that even the attributes involve existence (E1p19d, Ep. 4 (IV/13), and Ep. 10 (IV/47)). If we take literally Spinoza’s claims in E1p20 – “God’s existence and his essence are one and the same” – Spinoza would seem to hold that God’s essence is identical with (i.e., is nothing but) existence, and the attributes are just the most fundamental kinds, or manners, of existence (Melamed 2012; Garrett 2017). Since Spinoza defines God as a substance having infinitely many attributes (E1p6), he seems to be committed to there being infinitely many fundamental manners of existence, a view which Garrett (2017) calls “strong ontological pluralism.” Extension and thought are the two kinds, or manners, of existence in which we operate and which are accessible to us, but there are infinitely many other domains of existence (Spinoza’s infinitely many unknown attributes), which are just as real as our world of thought and extension, though we have no cognitive or causal access to these realms (Eps. 64 and 66. Cf. Melamed (2013), 156-61).

The Schopenhauerian Mind, 2023

Schopenhauer’s philosophical engagement with Spinoza spreads over many fronts, and an adequate – ... more Schopenhauer’s philosophical engagement with Spinoza spreads over many fronts, and an adequate – not to say, complete – treatment of the topic, should cover at least the following issues: Schopenhauer’s critique (and misunderstanding) of Spinoza’s pivotal concept of causa sui; Schopenhauer’s claim that Spinoza confused reason [ratio] and cause [causa]; the relationship between Schopenhauer’s and Spinoza’s monisms; the eminent role that both philosophers assign to causality; their shared belief in the absurdity of free will; and finally, Schopenhauer’s view of the world as a macroanthropos, as opposed to Spinoza’s attack on anthropomorphic thinking. An attempt to reconstruct a genuine philosophical dialogue between Schopenhauer and Spinoza should begin by setting the record straight and clarifying the mis-readings of the earlier philosopher by the later (and there are quite a few of this kind ). We could also benefit from comparing Schopenhauer’s reception of Spinoza’s with that of Schopenhauer’s German contemporaries. Regrettably our space here is limited and so if we wish to treat any of the issues in any depth, we must restrict the scope of the current chapter. For this reason, I have decided to concentrate on two central issues: animal rights (Part I) and evil (Part II). These issues are, clearly, at least as important as the others listed above.

The issue of negation and the possibility of self-negation stand at the very center of the philos... more The issue of negation and the possibility of self-negation stand at the very center of the philosophical dialogue between the systems of Spinoza and Hegel, and in this paper I will attempt to provide a preliminary explication of this foundational debate between the two systems. In the first part of the paper I will argue that the “determination is negation” formula has been understood in at least three distinct senses among the German Idealists, and as a result many of the participants in the discussion of this formula were actually talking past each other. The clarification of the three distinct senses of the formula will lead, in the second part of the paper, to a more precise evaluation of the fundamental debate between Spinoza and Hegel (and the German Idealists in general) regarding the possibility (or even necessity) of self-negation. In this part I will evaluate the validity of each interpretation of the determination formula, and motivate the positions of the various participants in the debate.

Spinoza in Germany: Political and Religious Thought across the long nineteenth Century (eds. J. Yonover and K. Gjesdal)

The term ‘Political Theology’ was not coined in the twentieth century. I am not absolutely sure a... more The term ‘Political Theology’ was not coined in the twentieth century. I am not absolutely sure about who was the first to introduce the term. As we shall shortly see, Salomon Maimon (1753-1800) used the term as part of the title to one of the chapters of his 1792/3 Lebensgeschichte, and it is the primary aim of my chapter to explain his understanding of the term.
The idea that views about the divine (‘theology’) – true or false – could have an important role in establishing (or undermining) political order and authority, or even in the promotion of the ideal state, goes back to Maimonides, al-Farabi, and ultimately, Plato. We are likely to hear echoes of these writers in the current chapter. Still, in addressing the background of Maimon’s discussion of political theology, I will focus on the one text which exerted the most significant influence on Maimon’s discussion of the issue: Spinoza’s Theological Political Treatise (1670).
In order to explain Maimon’s understanding of political theology, we will proceed in the following order. In the first part of the chapter we will have our first encounter with the term and the role of secrets in religious matters. The second part will study Maimon’s definitions of, and distinctions among, various forms of religion. In the third and final part we will explore Maimon’s views about “the greatest of all the mysteries of the Jewish religion” and about the nature of that religion.

Oxford Handbook of Jewish Philosophy (eds. Y. Melamed and P. Franks)

Jewish philosophy has seen better days. It has been quite a while since the discipline of Jewish ... more Jewish philosophy has seen better days. It has been quite a while since the discipline of Jewish philosophy enjoyed the respect of the wider philosophical community, and an obvious question is what are the reasons for this state of things? Providing a detailed and thorough answer to this question is beyond the scope of the current chapter. Still, I would like to contribute here a few ideas that might shed some light on the current predicament and its causes. Such an attempt is timely because the current moment in the development of Anglo-American philosophy is impregnated with a promise – which I hope is sincere – to turn the study of philosophy and the history of philosophy into an inclusive and genuinely universal field of inquiry, shared equally by all human beings, rather than an imposition of the prevalent beliefs of white Christian European males. A study of philosophy that is genuinely ecumenical could profit enormously from the encounter and dialogue with the philosophical thinking of minority cultures, since it is precisely this encounter with the philosophical thought of minority cultures that could expose the potentially numerous blind spots of the majority. If anything can heal Western philosophy from the prejudice that what one takes to be natural must be equally judged so by all rational human beings, it is only the encounter with non-Christian, or non-Western, philosophical thinking that could refute its illusory pretense of universality. Obviously, the real issue at stake is the sincerity of the attempt to understand foreign cultures and their philosophical thinking in their own terms. An identity politics that is merely interested in extending fig leaves would be far worse than the old, conservative state of things, insofar as the new and “inclusive” appearance would only provide the majority culture with a sense of self-satisfaction that would allow it to stick to its old and obstinate prejudicial practices.
My aims in the current chapter are pretty modest and concrete. In the first two parts of the chapter, I will attempt to shed light on two blind spots related to perceptions of Jewish philosophy, from without and from within, respectively. These two parts will thus inquire into the nature of Jewish philosophy as minority philosophy. In the third and final part, I will turn to the rudimentary requirements of Jewish philosophy qua philosophy. In this part, I will suggest some fundamental desiderata which might – I hope – help the field flourish and achieve the recognition it deserves. Here too, my claims would be quite plain, as most of the desired characteristics I would argue for are pretty trivial, yet unfortunately still mostly lacking.

Crisis & Critique, 2021

In a memorable moment in his celebrated book, For Marx, Althusser announces: It is impossible to ... more In a memorable moment in his celebrated book, For Marx, Althusser announces:
It is impossible to know anything about men except on the absolute precondition that the philosophical (theoretical) myth of man is reduced to ashes [réduire en cendres]. So any thought that appeals to Marx for any kind of restoration of a theoretical anthropology or humanism is no more than ashes, theoretically.
The myth of humanism – the view of the human subject as the end of creation and as being endowed with free will – was the subject of a seething critique by Benedict de Spinoza. Althusser was well aware of these strands of Spinoza’s anti-humanism, and it was partly by virtue of these strands that Althusser was so much attracted to Spinoza’s philosophy.
Still, from another perspective, Althusser was far more of a humanist than Spinoza, and it is the primary aim of this short essay to illuminate the ways in which Althusser – and his disciples – might have failed to appreciate the full extent of Spinoza’s attack on humanism.

Acta Philosophica

Accidents [accidens/toevallen] were recognized residents of the ontological polity of western phi... more Accidents [accidens/toevallen] were recognized residents of the ontological polity of western philosophy at least since Aristotle. While hardly ever enjoying an equal ontological status with their metaphysical superiors – substances – the presence of accidents in medieval Jewish, Islamic, and Christian philosophy was all but ubiquitous. Then something happened: rather enigmatically, accidents lost much of their legitimacy in the early modern period. So much so that by the end of this period, many considered accidents as the bastard children of an unholy union between theological obscurantism and our flimsy imagination. This sudden fall from grace is most salient – probably more than in any other contemporary author – in the work of Benedict de Spinoza (1632-1677). The young Spinoza seemed to espouse accidents – as changeable qualities, somehow akin to modes [modi] – as significant components of the genuine furniture of reality. But, roughly from 1663 on, Spinoza systematically avoided employing the concept of accident in his ontology (and political theory).
In this paper, we will try to trace the dramatic story of the fall of accidents from Spinoza’s paradise. In the first part of the paper, we will observe the accidents roaming freely – well, almost freely – in their pre-1663 paradise of Spinoza’s early works. The second part will be dedicated to some highlights in the early history of accidents “before creation,” i.e., before their incarnation in Spinoza’s early ontological paradise. The third part will study the banishment, or systematic elimination, of accidents from Spinoza’s ontology after 1663. The fourth and final part will attempt to determine the sin which brought about the accidents’ punishment. Thus we confront a seemingly classic narrative. Without further ado, let us turn directly to our first act.

New Moon Forum (פורום ראש חודש), 2020

In this (Hebrew) talk, I begin by discussing Gershom Scholem's thesis regarding the Neurtralizati... more In this (Hebrew) talk, I begin by discussing Gershom Scholem's thesis regarding the Neurtralization of Messianism in Early Hassidism. In the main body of the talk, I discuss several texts by diverse Hassidic schools, which offer a very wide variety of Messianic conceptions. Scholem's dichotomy between acute-historical Messianism, and spiritual-ahistorical forms Messianism, must confront a reality in which frequently one and the same Hassidic thinker, at the very same time, develops both historical and strictly atemporal variants of Messianism. Reality need not follow the dictates of scholars and their ideology.

This is a conversation (in Hebrew) with R. Avraham Abish Shorr, the leading historian of Hassidis... more This is a conversation (in Hebrew) with R. Avraham Abish Shorr, the leading historian of Hassidism, on the tensions between the disciples of the Besht and those of the Maggid - the two founding figures of Hassidism. The conversation/talk has been hosted by the Israeli National Library in Jerusalem.

Talk at the National Library of Israel, Jerusalem, 2020

During the Holocaust the vast majority (about 95%) of the Karliner hassidic community and its lea... more During the Holocaust the vast majority (about 95%) of the Karliner hassidic community and its leadership was exterminated. Over the past half century the community has been reestablished and it is currently searching for its plundered and lost cultural heritage. Professor Yitzhak Y. Melamed (Johns Hopkins University) will provide an overview of the current state of this search, its surprising successes, as well as some of its challenges. Melamed will also focus on the rare manuscripts of the Karlin-Stolin Archive from the 18th through 20th centuries, and on the Karliner musical legacy. The YIVO Archives is one of the few repositories to hold manuscripts as well as original music of the Karlin-Stolin heritage. Live samples of Karliner music will be provided by violinist Jonathan Rothman.

The two manuscripts of the Korte Verhandling that were discovered in the mid-nineteenth century c... more The two manuscripts of the Korte Verhandling that were discovered in the mid-nineteenth century contained two appendixes. These appendixes are even more enigmatic than the KV itself, and it is the first appendix that is the subject of my paper. Unfortunately, there are very few studies of this text, and its precise nature seems to be still in question after more than a century and a half of scholarship. It is commonly assumed that the appendixes were written after the body of the KV and I am not going to challenge this assumption. The first appendix is written in a geometric manner, and it contains seven axioms and four propositions. Strikingly, it does not include any definitions. This is in sharp contrast with Spinoza’s Ethics and his 1663 book on Descartes’ Principles of Philosophy that are similarly written in a geometric manner, but include both definitions and axioms. One could perhaps suspect that the text we currently have is merely a fragment from a more extensive work, which included definitions. In my paper, I will show that this is highly unlikely, and that the first appendix belongs to a genuine work of Spinoza that never contained definitions. I would further argue that the first appendix is most probably the earliest draft we currently have of Spinoza’s magnum opus, the Ethics, but we have a long way to go before we reach this conclusion.

בתוך יצחק י. מלמד, בנדיקט דה שפינוזה (גדולי היצירה של העם היהודי)

This is a chapter from an intellectual. biography of Spinoza for a Hebrew series at Shazar Press.... more This is a chapter from an intellectual. biography of Spinoza for a Hebrew series at Shazar Press. The chapter deals with Spinoza's understanding of the nature of thought and the human mind (Ethics, Part II).

בתוך יצחק י. מלמד, בנדיקט דה שפינוזה (גדולי היצירה של העם היהודי)

This is a draft of a chapter from a forthcoming intellectual biography of Spinoza to be published... more This is a draft of a chapter from a forthcoming intellectual biography of Spinoza to be published in Hebrew by Shazar Press.

בתוך יצחק י. מלמד, בנדיקט דה שפינוזה (גדולי היצירה של העם היהודי), 2018

Pantheism – roughly, the view that all things are in God – seems to be enjoying a genuine renaiss... more Pantheism – roughly, the view that all things are in God – seems to be enjoying a genuine renaissance of late. Arguably, pantheism (in its various forms) is attractive to our age not only because it is more amenable to a naturalist conception of both God and humanity, but also because it has been traditionally associated (in Christendom) with heresy. In this sense pantheism offers a certain form of religiosity that is detached from the burden of old religion and its violent, dogmatic, and intolerant history.
Though I am a proud card-carrying member of the pantheistic club, I will not at all argue for this view in the current paper. My aim here is much more modest and rudimentary: to clarify the logical space of the family of views that are commonly put together under the rubric of pantheism or panentheism. Such a clarification is urgently needed for two main reasons. First, agreeing on a common terminology for the various branches of pantheism will help us avoid the unfortunate, yet quite common, state of talking past each other, rather than engaging in genuine philosophical debate. Second, some of the folk formulations of pantheism seem to prejudge its very possibility. For example, if one defines pantheism as the view that “all things are parts of God,” and one is committed to a mereology in which parts are prior to their whole, it would seem that the road to pantheism is virtually blocked unless one is willing to embrace the unpalatable view that your smallest left finger and Billy the porcupine are prior to God. To avoid such pre-judgements, we will allow for a variety of ways in which things can be “in” God, i.e., we will allow for things to be in God, but not as parts of God.
In the first part of this paper, I introduce a distinction between Substance-Mode Pantheism and Whole-Part Pantheism. The Substance-Mode Pantheist holds that all things (bodies, thoughts, and everything that is) are modes or states of God, while the Whole-Part Pantheist holds that all things are just parts of God. As noted, the distinction between these two forms of pantheism is related to one’s premises about (1) the priority relation holding between parts and wholes and (2) the possibility of allowing God to be posterior to anything.
In the second part, I suggest two alternative ways to draw the dichotomy between pantheism and panentheism. According to the one, pantheism asserts a symmetric dependence between God and the world of finite things, while panentheism asserts an asymmetric dependence of the world on God. An alternative way to draw a distinction between pantheism and panentheism is to say that pantheism asserts an identity between God and nature – as the totality of bodies and mental items – while panentheism asserts that all bodies and thoughts are in God, yet they do not exhaust God, i.e., there are some aspects, or elements, of God beyond physical and mental nature.

In the current study, I will trace the influence of Spinoza’s early rabbinic training in his writ... more In the current study, I will trace the influence of Spinoza’s early rabbinic training in his writing from the period after he left the Jewish community. I will argue that Spinoza is frequently unaware of the formative role of his early rabbinic education and that he commonly read the Bible through rabbinic eyes without being conscious of this. If my argument is convincing, it would seem that much more attention should be paid to Spinoza’s early education. Oddly enough, even Harry Austryn Wolfson, who presented Spinoza’s mature philosophy as a mere reassembly of medieval philosophical teachings, paid little attention to the influence of his Jewish contemporaries in Amsterdam.
In the first part of the paper I will present Spinoza’s official ideology of reading the Bible according to its literal sense. I will then discuss briefly cases where Spinoza intentionally interprets the Bible in a non-literal sense. In the second part I will point out and discuss several passages in the TTP where Spinoza reads the Bible through rabbinic eyes, without being the least aware of it. In the third and final part, I will point out one striking case in which Spinoza translates into Latin a certain rabbinic term, apparently without realizing that his readers are not likely to share the connotation of the term with rabbinic readers. Thus, I will conclude, a certain part of Spinoza’s mind was still working within a rabbinic framework even in his late years, and the great adversary of the Pharisees turns out to be partly a Pharisee in spite of himself.

Ex nihilo nihil fit. Philosophy, especially great philosophy, does not appear out of the blue. Th... more Ex nihilo nihil fit. Philosophy, especially great philosophy, does not appear out of the blue. The current volume attempts to trace the philosophical development of one of the greatest philosophers of all times. It is the first attempt of its kind in English and its timely appearance coincides with the recent, fervent, increase of interest in Spinoza’s philosophy in Anglo-American philosophy.
It seems that the US has recently eclipsed France as the world center for Spinoza scholarship. The essays in this volume were written by a top international team of well established and up and coming scholars. This new volume has the potential to reorient the field by addressing questions that were barely asked so far (at least among Anglo-American scholars).
Spinoza’s fame—or notoriety—is due primarily to his posthumously published magnum opus, the Ethics, and, to a somewhat lesser extent, to the 1670 Theological-Political Treatise. Few readers take the time to study his early works carefully. If they do, they are likely to encounter some surprising claims, which often diverge from, or even utterly contradict, the doctrines of the Ethics. Consider just a few of these assertions: that God acts from absolute freedom of will, that God is a whole, that there are no modes in God, that extension is divisible and hence cannot be an attribute of God, and that the intellectual and corporeal substances are modes in relation to God. Yet, though these claims reveal some tension between the early works and the Ethics, there is also a clear continuity between them.
Spinoza wrote the Ethics over a long period of time, which spanned most of his philosophical career. The dates of the early drafts of the Ethics, as documented in his earliest letters, seem to overlap (or almost overlap) with the assumed dates of the composition of the Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect and the Short Treatise on God, Man, and His Well Being, and precede the publication of Spinoza’s 1663 book on Descartes’ Principles of Philosophy. For this reason, it seems that a study of Spinoza’s early works (and correspondence) could illuminate the nature of the problems Spinoza addresses in the Ethics, insofar as the views expressed in the early works help us reconstruct the development and genealogy of the Ethics. Indeed, if we keep in mind the common dictum “nothing comes from nothing”—which Spinoza frequently cites and appeals to—it is clear that great works like the Ethics do not appear ex nihilo. In light of the preeminence and majesty of the Ethics, it is difficult to study the early works without having the Ethics in sight. Still, we would venture to say that the value of Spinoza’s early works is not at all limited to their being stations on the road leading to the Ethics. A teleological attitude of such a sort would celebrate the works of the “mature Spinoza” at the expense of the early works. However, we have no reason to assume that on all issues the views of the Ethics are better argued, developed, and motivated than those of the early works. In other words, we should keep our minds open to the possibility that on some issues the early works might contain better analysis and argumentation than the Ethics.

This book offers a new and radical interpretation of the core of Spinoza's metaphysic... more This book offers a new and radical interpretation of the core of Spinoza's metaphysics. The first half of the book, which concentrates on the metaphysics of substance, suggests a new reading of Spinoza's key concepts of Substance and Mode, of Spinoza's pantheism and monism, and of his understanding of causation. The second half addresses Spinoza's metaphysics of Thought and presents three bold and interrelated theses on Spinoza's two doctrines of parallelism, on the multifaceted structure of ideas, and on Spinoza's reasons for holding that we cannot know any attributes of God, or Nature, other than Thought and Extension. Finally, the author shows that Spinoza assigns clear priority to the attribute of Thought without embracing reductive idealIsm.

Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, 2021

"To try to find out the reason for everything is very dangerous and leads to nothing but disappoi... more "To try to find out the reason for everything is very dangerous and leads to nothing but disappointment and dissatisfaction." With this zesty Queen Victoria quote Martin Lin opens the final chapter of his new book on Spinoza's metaphysics. In his introduction, Lin echoes Queen Victoria's admonition, warning the reader of the vices of over-confident rationalism that fails to realize that "the world is full of the contingent and the inexplicable" (2). While mostly sharing Lin's sentiment against hubristic rationalism, I have some reservations about his confidence that the vast terrain of the unexplained is also unexplainable. But let's not jump the gun. Lin's book appears at a particularly exciting time when the study of Spinoza is flourishing and outstanding works-such as Sam Newlands's recent book-are coming into the light of day. Lin's text, which attempts to provide an account of the core of Spinoza's metaphysics, consists of seven chapters. The first chapter, addressing the geometrical method of the Ethics and its historical context, is followed by chapters on Spinoza's understanding of substance (Ch. 2), God (Ch. 3), attributes (Ch. 4), modes (Ch. 5), Spinoza's conatus doctrine and teleology (Ch. 6), and a final chapter on Spinoza's metaphysical rationalism. Throughout the book, Lin endeavors both to place Spinoza in his historical context and to put him in dialogue with contemporary metaphysics (and even quantum theory and modern physics (114)).

Journal of the History of Philosophy

Like most, if not all, of his contemporaries, Spinoza never developed a full-fledged philosophy o... more Like most, if not all, of his contemporaries, Spinoza never developed a full-fledged philosophy of mathematics. Still, his numerous remarks about mathematics attest not only to his deep interest in the subject (a point which is also confirmed by the significant presence of mathematical books in his library), but also to his quite elaborate and perhaps unique understanding of the nature of mathematics. At the very center of his thought about mathematics stands a paradox (or, at least, an apparent paradox): mathematics provides Spinoza with an epistemic model. Mathematical knowledge is certain (II/138/9 and II/138/9), clear (IV/261/8), and free from teleological thinking (II/79/33), but the objects of mathematical knowledge – i.e., mathematical entities – are nothing but “auxila imaginationis [aids of the imagination],” (IV/57/16 and II/83/15), entities that are not real and merely assist the imagination in carving the world in manner that is suitable to our limited and distortive cognitive capacities.
Matthew Homan’s new book is a study of Spinoza’s epistemology “based on an interpretation of the epistemic and ontological status of mathematical entities in Spinoza” (4). The book has many virtues. It is well-written, clear, and highly informed by the secondary literature. For the most part, Homan defends his claims through a serious engagement and consideration of objections and alternatives to his reading. The book is also quite ambitious in its scope as it provides an account of Spinoza’s response to skepticism, his view of the ontology of mathematics, his scientific methodology, his understanding of essence, and the notion of scientia intuitiva, the highest kind of cognition in Spinoza’s epistemology. It is impossible to do justice to such a book in a brief review. For this reason, I will focus my discussion here on two critical points: the one related to Spinoza’s understanding of mathematics, the other to his understanding of the proper order of philosophizing.

Journal of the History of Philosophy, Apr 2014

European Journal of Philosophy, Mar 2013

shortly after its publication, and the work made Spinoza one of the most notorious spirits hoveri... more shortly after its publication, and the work made Spinoza one of the most notorious spirits hovering under the skies of Europe. To this very day, Spinoza retains his reputation as an iconoclast. Yet, in spite of the great interest and respect Spinoza's metaphysics has recently gained among analytic philosophers, his political philosophy has failed to achieve any such esteem. Prima facie, this may seem quite surprising, since Spinoza's political theory is far bolder, and arguably more sophisticated, than that of Hobbes or Locke. But the reasons for this neglect are not difficult to pin down. First, you have Spinoza's ironic style and habit of writing between the lines, which make it somewhat hard to rephrase his claims by "if and only if" formulae (though I would not assign much weight to this issue). Then, you have the seizure of the discourse on Spinoza's political philosophy by Leo Strauss and his crowd during the 1970s and 1980s. Typically, Strauss turned Spinoza into an Athenian in Jerusalemite garb, and presented him as attempting to employ the masses in the service of the secret elites. While Strauss was right to stress the multi-layered style in Spinoza's writing (a style that was quite transparent to Spinoza's contemporaries), he reduced Spinoza's claims to a childish game of secret societies and a gross dichotomy between faith and reason.

Political Thought, Harvard UP, 2010, 229pp., $27.95 (hbk), ISBN 9780674050587.

Rezensionen pathetic to MA's aim, I'm afraid that I am not convinced by the way he argues his the... more Rezensionen pathetic to MA's aim, I'm afraid that I am not convinced by the way he argues his thesis. That is, the thesis makes sense, but it requires a very precise analysis of what it is about the One's being divine and about its passing on its divinity, that solves the problem. The elements for such an analysis are present only implicitly in MA's discussion. The secret of the success of the One lies not so much in its being a god as such (for what does that mean?) and passing on its divinity (again, what does that mean?) but in a combination of metaphysical principles, underlying among others the notion of divinity. These principles are well known from the Elements of Theology, and are meant to guarantee metaphysical continuity and the transitivity of certain properties. Thus, the One does the job (assuming, of course, that we agree with the principles) because it is a cause, because it is one, and because every effect is similar to its cause. Moreover, the One's offer of unity is passed on to lower echelons because of the continuity inherent in all of reality, from the highest One to the lowest immanent entities. That continuity, in turn, is obtained by Proclus in two ways: by construing reality as consisting of partially overlapping triads, and by building metaphysical 'motion' into all of reality. For the 'motion', Proclus brings into play the Aristotelian notion of dunamis, which is clearly distinguishable in the core of all Neoplatonic metaphysics: emanation or procession. The part of the divine hierarchy which demonstrates best how this works is probably the abovementioned pair of Limit and unlimited. The latter, as the power (dunamis) of the former, produces Being together with the former. And likewise every level of reality (except the lowest) produces a lower level which in part consists of its source, similar to the way parents 'produce' children. This is not the place to elaborate on these issues, nor is what I say here new. My point is that such an elaboration is required for a proper answer to the question how the unity of the world is guaranteed.

Journal of Religion, 2012

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, a... more JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

the late Alan Donagan, though none of these really attempted to provide a comprehensive picture o... more the late Alan Donagan, though none of these really attempted to provide a comprehensive picture of Spinoza's views on morality. That the issue of morality and ethics is central to Spinoza's philosophy one can learn from the very title of his magnum opus -the Ethics. From various early drafts of the Ethics, quoted in Spinoza's letters, we learn that the original title of the book was 'Philosophy' (TIE 31 note k [II/14], TIE 45, 51). Spinoza could not title his book 'Metaphysics [metaphysica]' since at his time the term was closely associated with scholastic and Aristotelian philosophy, which on many occasions Spinoza subjected to rather sharp and pointed criticism. That Spinoza eventually settled on the title 'Ethica' seems to show both the centrality of the topic to Spinoza's thought, and the fact that for Spinoza the ethical "part" of the book begins with the first sentence of the first part.

Journal of Religion, 2008

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