Elements in the Philosophy of Benedict de Spinoza – serie

Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) was born and educated in the Portuguese Jewish community of Amsterdam. The influence of medieval Jewish philosophy on him was formative. He studied the major Jewish philosophers, like Rabbis Abraham ibn Ezra and Moses Maimonides, long before he read contemporary European philosophers, like René Descartes and Thomas Hobbes. He was put under the ban (ḥerem) in 1656. However, even in his last years he continued to study Hebrew books. Spinoza's philosophic position is often 'Maimonidean' but sometimes 'anti-Maimonidean.' In this Element, the author discusses Spinoza's debt to Saadia Gaon, Rashi and Pseudo-Rashi, Judah Halevi, Abraham ibn Ezra, Moses Maimonides, Abraham Abulafia, Joseph Kaspi, Isaac Polgar, Levi Gersonides, Ḥasdai Crescas, Profayt Duran alias Efodi, and Joseph Albo.

Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) was born and educated in the Portuguese Jewish community of Amsterdam. The influence of medieval Jewish philosophy on him was formative. He studied the major Jewish philosophers, like Rabbis Abraham ibn Ezra and Moses Maimonides, long before he read contemporary European philosophers, like René Descartes and Thomas Hobbes. He was put under the ban (ḥerem) in 1656. However, even in his last years he continued to study Hebrew books. Spinoza's philosophic position is often 'Maimonidean' but sometimes 'anti-Maimonidean.' In this Element, the author discusses Spinoza's debt to Saadia Gaon, Rashi and Pseudo-Rashi, Judah Halevi, Abraham ibn Ezra, Moses Maimonides, Abraham Abulafia, Joseph Kaspi, Isaac Polgar, Levi Gersonides, Ḥasdai Crescas, Profayt Duran alias Efodi, and Joseph Albo.

In recent writings on popular science, there has been much handwringing about the apparently deterministic picture of human decision making suggested by the latest scientific research. Robert Sapolsky's bestselling Determined boldly argues that morality must be reformed because free will has been effectively refuted. But the question of whether free will and morality can be reconciled with a causally determined world is nothing new, nor is it the sort of question that can be answered by scientists. This Element examines how these questions were answered by Spinoza, history's most forceful defender of the claim that all things are necessarily determined, who also was keenly interested in the prospects for morality in a determined world. The Element aims to show that this figure from the past offers a timely and insightful explanation of how we can be free and responsible even if our actions are inevitable.