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For Spinoza Fans.
This book is a valuable commentary on Spinoza's "Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect"(ISDN: 048620250X). It has the Gebhardt Latin text and Curley's English translation on facing pages.

Itdescribes in great detail Spinoza's Method for acquiring Wisdom. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Supreme Wisdom
If you want to understand living, read Spinoza.If you want to understand Spinoza, read Wienpahl.It is that simple.Few writers have understood living better than Spinoza, and I know of no one who understood Spinoza better than Wienpahl.Wienpahl's book, like it's subject, is not simple.But it is rewarding beyond measure.

The Radical Spinoza has nine chapters and an appendix.Chapters 1-3 provide historical, biographical, and philosophical background for the core chapters.These are chapters 4-9, and they treat the core concepts in Spinoza's thought: unity (God), attributes (non-dualism), egolessness (connections with Zen Buddhism, and - in my view - Taoism), understanding (the highest form of knowing), human servitude, and human freedom.The appendix contains Spinoza's Ethic in "skeleton" form, with Wienpahl's own careful (and accurate) translation.The English is on one side, with the Latin on the other.

Wienpahl was a professor of mine at UCSB, and he was an inspirational teacher.His lessons have stayed with me all of my life, and reading The Radical Spinoza was not only a "walk down memory lane", but a re-introduction to the great man's understanding.All in all, a treat.Highly recommended. ... Read more

Product Description
This Elibron Classics edition is a facsimile reprint of a 1888 edition by William Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh and London. ... Read more

Book Description
This latest volume in the Spinoza by 2000 series contains papers from leading scholars on Book IV of the Ethics, including Garber, Della Roca, Brinker, Bove, and Yovell. In this volume, Spinoza’s understanding of the relation between reason and passion and the nature of human perfectibility are explored in depth, as is Spinoza’s place within the history of philosophy and his relation to other components of early modern thought. This series is already well respected and eagerly anticipated within the scholarly community. ... Read more

Amazon.com
Longtime readers of Paul Strathern's 90 Minutes books--pamphlets, really--know the drill: Strathern provides a minibiography of one of the world's great philosophers and an overview of his intellectual contributions, interspersed with Strathern's sometimes witty, sometimes merely sarcastic, comments about his subject's life and surroundings. His book on Spinoza, whose philosophy he considers "one of the finest ever produced," is no exception. Spinoza was an outcast in 17th-century Holland; as a Jew, he faced opposition from the Christians, and as a radical thinker who attacked not only the scientific but theological authority of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Old Testament), he was shunned--excommunicated, even--by the Jewish community. Left to his own devices, he crafted a pantheistic philosophy based on the premise that God and the universe are one and the same, so that to harm others is ultimately to harm oneself. As Strathern writes, it has "a compelling beauty unequaled in the history of philosophy." (Although, in order to get to that level of brilliance, Spinoza had to write his share of clunkers, including one book that Strathern describes as "reducing Descartes' delightful and lucid style to a rubble of almost impenetrable mathematics.") Book Description
In Spinoza in 90 Minutes, Paul Strathern offers a concise, expert account of Spinoza's life and ideas, and explains their influence on man's struggle to understand his existence in the world. The book also includes selections from Spinoza's writings; a brief list of suggested reading for those who wish to push further; and chronologies that place Spinoza within his own age and in the broader scheme of philosophy. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Quick Review of History's greatest
I picked up "Aquinas in 90 Minutes" in our Maui condo laundry room. It was so interesting that I now have St. Thomas Aquinas " Shorter Summa". I then had to have the same " 90 Minute" book for other "favorite philosophers".

The philosopher who lived in accord with what he wrote
This is a very good short account of the life and work of the philosopher who according to Will Durant was the exception among the great philosophers in that ' he lived in accord with what he wrote'. Strathern tells the story of Spinoza's lonely struggle to be true to his vision of God and Nature. Strathern writes ofthe famous excommunication from the Portugese Jewish community, the humble life of the lens-grinder, the loyal friend ready to take on mobs to protest against the assassination of the politician DeWitt, the supreme rationalist seeing all ' with the eyes of Eternity.' Spinoza who maintained his meditation was the meditation of a free man and so' a meditation on life and not on death' had a pure vision of God as Nature as All-in- All. His appeal to Goethe and English Romanticism came in part from this. His God is All, and yet sublime and impersonal if not like Joyce's paring his fingernails, then certainly not like the Old Testament Hebrew God intervening to prevent Abraham from taking the life of his only beloved son. In other words the God of Spinoza is a God very much of the philosophers, and not one which Pascal a figure of comparable intellectual intensity and aesthetic greatness would have abided.
Strathern shows a clear admiration for his subject, and a respect for the subject- matter of his thought. He takes a few jabs, here and there at the great man but not in such a way as to diminish the feeling that we are dealing here one of Mankind's great thinkers.

By "Spinoza in 90 Minutes" I understand:
I. Spinoza is a strange and interesting philosopher. His life sticks out in the history of philosophy. He not only philosophized, but he lived his philosophy. Q.E.D.

II. After an assassination attempt, Spinoza managed to get excommunicated from the Amsterdam synagogue in 1656. Q.E.D.

III. Spinoza turned down prestigious university posts and instead made his living grinding glass lenses. At the same time he composed a classic metaphysical system that he also applied to a political system. Q.E.D.

IV. Spinoza was one of the first philosophers to claim that the aim of the state is individual freedom. Q.E.D.

V. Though Spinoza's metaphysics belong to a different time, it is an example of how a theory of existence can be applied to a manner of living and being. Q.E.D.

VI. This book provides a good but very short introduction to the life and philosophy of one of the most interesting philosophers in the history books. Q.E.D.

VII. Spinoza managed to live a very humble life and still attain fame and recognition in his own time. He corresponded with Huygens, Newton, Leibniz, and other eminent people of the 17th century. Q.E.D.

VIII. Spinoza's works were so controversial they were either not published during his lifetime or published anonymously shortly after his death. Q.E.D.

IX. Spinoza's metaphysical system was based on pantheism, which posited that everything and everyone is God, so that if you hurt another you hurt yourself. There are corollaries to the modern Gaia hypothesis in this. Q.E.D.

X. This book will leave you wanting to know more about Spinoza and why he wrote in a strange numbered aphoristic manner. It can be read in a single reading and will acquaint you with Spinoza and why he is considered important. Q.E.D.

XI. Read this book, then move onto more thorough studies if it catches your interest. Q.E.D. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Simply Profound
As a psychologist, who has some interest in the variety of topics addressed in this book, I have to say that Dr. Grossman's overall philosphical take on the meaning of life is probably the most profound I have ever read. His ideas about psychology are grounded in a view of our universe that is very consistent with current theories in other scientific disciplines, such as physics and biology. Although I believe this book is way ahead of our time, it is my hope this Dr. Grossman's ideas will help make a difference in our lifetime. If you read this book carefully and with an open mind, it will change the way you relate to yourself, to others, and to the universe as a whole.

A wonderful book!
This book is a tremendously helpful, non-technical introduction to the philosophy of the great Spinoza!Shows the link between the theoretical and practical sides well. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

INTERESTING, CHALLENGING TEXT ON SPINOZA
Baruch Spinoza is one of the best known 17th century thinkers, as his philosophy of secularism was far ahead of his time.This book aims to create the world at the time through conversations with Baruch and through depiction of the meanders of his life.

His community was of Spanish/Portuguese Jews who fled to Holland.There we know that Baruch was excomungated from the Jewish community, but it is not clear why.Baruch's philophy empashized pure reason as a way to achieve salvation, and not the major religions of the time.His questioning of the existence of a deity were too much for his time, and the book presents such occurences by imagining such a situation.

This is an interesting book, but I am not sure this would be a good intro duction to Spinoza.There is too much that the book takes for granted that the reader knows; this book is recommended to those familiar with Spinoza's philosophy and wanting a better feel for what it must have been like at the time to hold such thoughts.Not for the beginner. ... Read more