WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.679 Welcome to the Deep Dive, the show that takes 00:00:01.679 --> 00:00:03.980 a stack of sources, articles, research, sometimes 00:00:03.980 --> 00:00:06.820 centuries of controversial philosophy, and extracts 00:00:06.820 --> 00:00:09.019 the precise nuggets of knowledge and insight 00:00:09.019 --> 00:00:11.619 you need to fully grasp the figures who define 00:00:11.619 --> 00:00:15.039 modernity. Today, we are opening the file on 00:00:15.039 --> 00:00:17.719 a, well, a monumental and profoundly disruptive 00:00:17.719 --> 00:00:20.879 thinker from the 17th century, Baruch Spinoza. 00:00:21.000 --> 00:00:24.300 Right, and this is a man who's... rigorous, almost 00:00:24.300 --> 00:00:27.260 mathematical approach to truth caused him to 00:00:27.260 --> 00:00:29.339 be expelled from his community. And I mean, the 00:00:29.339 --> 00:00:31.500 harshest possible way. And subsequently labeled 00:00:31.500 --> 00:00:33.799 the most dangerous atheist of his age, which 00:00:33.799 --> 00:00:35.859 is ironic because his philosophy is in a way 00:00:35.859 --> 00:00:38.270 all about God. That's the paradox we're getting 00:00:38.270 --> 00:00:40.670 into. We are diving deep into the life and the 00:00:40.670 --> 00:00:44.149 radical thought of Baruch Spinoza, born in 1632, 00:00:44.369 --> 00:00:47.469 who died too young in 1677. Our mission today 00:00:47.469 --> 00:00:49.590 is a critical one, to unpack the most crucial 00:00:49.590 --> 00:00:51.750 insights from the sources regarding his controversial 00:00:51.750 --> 00:00:54.590 life, and maybe more importantly, his breathtaking 00:00:54.590 --> 00:00:57.549 philosophy, which just fundamentally reshaped 00:00:57.549 --> 00:01:00.530 our concepts of God, nature, and, well, human 00:01:00.530 --> 00:01:03.310 freedom. Spinoza's system is essential. I mean, 00:01:03.329 --> 00:01:05.689 you could argue it laid the intellectual groundwork 00:01:05.689 --> 00:01:07.849 for the Age of Enlightenment. We're going to 00:01:07.849 --> 00:01:10.310 examine how his work challenged traditional religious 00:01:10.310 --> 00:01:13.010 and political authority. From his masterwork, 00:01:13.049 --> 00:01:15.349 The Ethics, which is written in this incredible 00:01:15.349 --> 00:01:19.269 way. Geometric proofs. All the way to his defining 00:01:19.269 --> 00:01:23.129 and still scandalous equation of reality, Deus 00:01:23.129 --> 00:01:26.709 is Natura. God or nature, the two are one and 00:01:26.709 --> 00:01:28.670 the same. Okay, let's unpack this. We have to 00:01:28.670 --> 00:01:30.879 start with the man and his environment. Because 00:01:30.879 --> 00:01:35.480 the context of 17th century Amsterdam is absolutely 00:01:35.480 --> 00:01:38.400 essential to understanding why his ideas were 00:01:38.400 --> 00:01:40.900 so explosive and why they led to his exile. It 00:01:40.900 --> 00:01:42.599 really is. You can't separate the philosophy 00:01:42.599 --> 00:01:45.000 from the life. So let's get into it. Part one, 00:01:45.159 --> 00:01:48.340 the life of a radical. Spinoza's origins are 00:01:48.340 --> 00:01:51.420 critical. He was born Baruch Espinosa in 1632 00:01:51.420 --> 00:01:53.700 in the Dutch Republic to a family of Portuguese 00:01:53.700 --> 00:01:57.319 Jews, and they were Moranos. OK, so that term 00:01:57.319 --> 00:01:59.780 Morano, what does it mean for his family history? 00:02:00.200 --> 00:02:02.459 It means their ancestors had been forced under 00:02:02.459 --> 00:02:04.680 the threat of the Spanish and Portuguese inquisitions 00:02:04.680 --> 00:02:07.299 to convert to Catholicism. So on the surface, 00:02:07.459 --> 00:02:09.919 they were Catholic. Right. Outwardly Catholic 00:02:09.919 --> 00:02:12.120 for generations. But many of them, and we can 00:02:12.120 --> 00:02:15.379 probably assume Spinoza's family as well, were 00:02:15.379 --> 00:02:17.819 practicing crypto Judaism. They were Jewish in 00:02:17.819 --> 00:02:21.379 secret. That immediately gives us this historical 00:02:21.379 --> 00:02:23.659 tension, doesn't it? They arrive in Amsterdam 00:02:23.659 --> 00:02:26.840 seeking religious tolerance. They're already 00:02:26.840 --> 00:02:29.340 accustomed to living a kind of double life, one 00:02:29.340 --> 00:02:32.520 public, one private after generations of persecution. 00:02:32.680 --> 00:02:35.780 Precisely. And Amsterdam was, you know, relatively 00:02:35.780 --> 00:02:38.340 tolerant. It's often described as a haven for 00:02:38.340 --> 00:02:40.800 religious dissenters. But that tolerance was. 00:02:41.889 --> 00:02:44.669 It had conditions. It had conditions, big ones. 00:02:44.889 --> 00:02:47.189 It existed on the condition that religious practice 00:02:47.189 --> 00:02:49.330 remained discreet, especially non -Christian 00:02:49.330 --> 00:02:52.289 practice, and most importantly, that the various 00:02:52.289 --> 00:02:55.069 communities did not disturb the civil peace or 00:02:55.069 --> 00:02:57.129 provoke the Dutch Calvinist authorities. So it 00:02:57.129 --> 00:02:59.849 rocked the boat. Do not rock the boat. And the 00:02:59.849 --> 00:03:02.189 Spinoza family, especially his father Michael, 00:03:02.389 --> 00:03:04.689 was a big deal in the community. He was a prominent 00:03:04.689 --> 00:03:07.050 wealthy merchant, and he even served as an officer 00:03:07.050 --> 00:03:09.169 of the United Congregation, the Talmud Torah. 00:03:09.659 --> 00:03:12.240 So young Baruch had a very traditional and academically 00:03:12.240 --> 00:03:14.780 rich start, right? He's attending the Talmud 00:03:14.780 --> 00:03:17.439 Torah school. He's soaking up the sacred texts, 00:03:17.620 --> 00:03:20.159 the literature of the community. Yes, a rigorous 00:03:20.159 --> 00:03:22.879 classical education. He was a brilliant student. 00:03:23.379 --> 00:03:25.960 But his life took a pretty sharp turn when he 00:03:25.960 --> 00:03:28.560 was still quite young. What happened? The sources 00:03:28.560 --> 00:03:31.199 indicate that his older brother, Isaac, who was 00:03:31.199 --> 00:03:33.500 the one expected to inherit and run the family 00:03:33.500 --> 00:03:38.360 business, died prematurely in 1649. Ah. And that 00:03:38.360 --> 00:03:40.979 loss suddenly pulled the scholarly Baruch away 00:03:40.979 --> 00:03:43.280 from his books and straight into the family's 00:03:43.280 --> 00:03:46.000 commercial enterprise. So we see this shift then. 00:03:46.080 --> 00:03:49.180 The intellectual ambitions get momentarily sidelined 00:03:49.180 --> 00:03:51.669 for commerce. And this happened, I believe, right 00:03:51.669 --> 00:03:53.789 when the successful family firm was starting 00:03:53.789 --> 00:03:55.830 to struggle financially. The timing couldn't 00:03:55.830 --> 00:03:57.930 have been worse, really. The first Anglo -Dutch 00:03:57.930 --> 00:04:01.969 war from 1652 to 1654 just crippled the Spinoza 00:04:01.969 --> 00:04:04.310 firm. English ships seized a lot of their valuable 00:04:04.310 --> 00:04:07.110 cargo, their shipping lines were disrupted, and 00:04:07.110 --> 00:04:09.270 the business was suddenly saddled with substantial 00:04:09.270 --> 00:04:12.490 debt. So when Michael Spinoza, the father, died 00:04:12.490 --> 00:04:17.120 in 1654, Baruch... then in his early 20s, inherited, 00:04:17.439 --> 00:04:19.899 well, not a thriving enterprise, but a heap of 00:04:19.899 --> 00:04:22.139 financial obligations. The family fortune was 00:04:22.139 --> 00:04:25.019 gone. By 1655, it was essentially gone. Okay. 00:04:25.060 --> 00:04:26.740 And this is where the personal financial crisis 00:04:26.740 --> 00:04:30.160 starts to metastasize into an ideological and 00:04:30.160 --> 00:04:32.939 ultimately a religious one. The sources suggest 00:04:32.939 --> 00:04:35.579 the path to his expulsion was really paved with 00:04:35.579 --> 00:04:38.379 legal paperwork. Absolutely. The crisis point 00:04:38.379 --> 00:04:41.779 arrives in March of 1656. To protect himself 00:04:41.779 --> 00:04:45.319 from creditors and this inherited debt, Spinoza 00:04:45.319 --> 00:04:47.860 took a really radical legal step. What did he 00:04:47.860 --> 00:04:50.240 do? He appealed to the city authorities, so the 00:04:50.240 --> 00:04:52.480 secular power of Amsterdam, to declare him a 00:04:52.480 --> 00:04:55.000 legal minor or an orphan. Would it do what for 00:04:55.000 --> 00:04:57.120 him, legally? It would allow him to renounce 00:04:57.120 --> 00:04:59.420 his inheritance and therefore escape the debts. 00:04:59.480 --> 00:05:02.069 It was a clever legal move. Weakly, he's just 00:05:02.069 --> 00:05:04.089 using the Dutch civil code to protect his future. 00:05:04.230 --> 00:05:06.589 But in doing so, he broke a major rule within 00:05:06.589 --> 00:05:09.810 the synagogue. Critically so. The synagogue had 00:05:09.810 --> 00:05:12.910 a very strict regulation that all business disputes, 00:05:13.209 --> 00:05:15.910 especially internal ones about debt or inheritance, 00:05:16.189 --> 00:05:19.350 had to be arbitrated internally within the community 00:05:19.350 --> 00:05:22.209 structure. You don't air your dirty laundry in 00:05:22.209 --> 00:05:24.389 public. And you certainly don't go to the secular 00:05:24.389 --> 00:05:28.639 court. By doing that, he publicly undermined 00:05:28.639 --> 00:05:30.740 the autonomy and the authority of the community 00:05:30.740 --> 00:05:33.620 leadership. That's one huge layer of offense. 00:05:33.939 --> 00:05:36.339 But the community's fear was deeper than just 00:05:36.339 --> 00:05:38.279 a bookkeeping dispute, right? This was about 00:05:38.279 --> 00:05:41.379 survival. Exactly. This brings us right back 00:05:41.379 --> 00:05:44.839 to that fragile tolerance in Amsterdam. The municipal 00:05:44.839 --> 00:05:47.360 government had explicitly ordered the Jewish 00:05:47.360 --> 00:05:50.100 community to keep strict religious observance 00:05:50.100 --> 00:05:52.120 and civil order. So the leaders were walking 00:05:52.120 --> 00:05:54.740 on eggshells. They were terrified. They were 00:05:54.740 --> 00:05:57.060 terrified that Spinoza's increasingly controversial 00:05:57.060 --> 00:05:59.639 philosophical views, which were already becoming 00:05:59.639 --> 00:06:02.240 known through his conversations with, you know, 00:06:02.259 --> 00:06:05.220 free thinkers and dissidents, would lead to persecution. 00:06:05.240 --> 00:06:07.939 Or worse, the expulsion of the entire community. 00:06:08.240 --> 00:06:09.639 Because the civil authorities would just see 00:06:09.639 --> 00:06:11.300 it as the Jewish community failing to maintain 00:06:11.300 --> 00:06:14.720 order. Failing to control their own? So his intellectual 00:06:14.720 --> 00:06:17.740 radicalism was viewed as a genuine existential 00:06:17.740 --> 00:06:20.480 threat to hundreds of families. And that provides 00:06:20.480 --> 00:06:24.560 this chilling context for the severity of the 00:06:24.560 --> 00:06:27.879 punishment that came next. On July 27, 1656, 00:06:28.220 --> 00:06:31.410 at only 23 years old, The community leaders issued 00:06:31.410 --> 00:06:34.230 the harem, the writ of censure. In our sources, 00:06:34.310 --> 00:06:36.689 Cress, this wasn't just any censure. No. This 00:06:36.689 --> 00:06:39.550 was the harshest censure ever pronounced in that 00:06:39.550 --> 00:06:41.790 community's history. It was read out loud in 00:06:41.790 --> 00:06:43.370 the synagogue. And the language was extreme, 00:06:43.529 --> 00:06:45.050 wasn't it? They didn't even detail his philosophical 00:06:45.050 --> 00:06:48.449 crime. They just invoked abominable heresies 00:06:48.449 --> 00:06:51.670 and monstrous deeds. They chose that vagueness 00:06:51.670 --> 00:06:55.029 deliberately. It was a strategy. By not publicizing 00:06:55.029 --> 00:06:57.509 his specific theological challenges, which we 00:06:57.509 --> 00:06:59.610 now know included denying the immorality of God, 00:06:59.470 --> 00:07:01.810 Immortality of the soul, questioning the design 00:07:01.810 --> 00:07:04.050 authorship of the Torah, things like that. Really 00:07:04.050 --> 00:07:06.850 fundamental stuff. Core tenets. By keeping it 00:07:06.850 --> 00:07:09.350 vague, they avoided inflaming the general public 00:07:09.350 --> 00:07:11.629 and provoking the Dutch Calvinists. They were 00:07:11.629 --> 00:07:13.949 essentially sending a message. We have dealt 00:07:13.949 --> 00:07:16.329 with our internal radical. Please do not punish 00:07:16.329 --> 00:07:18.750 us all for his sins. It's fascinating, though, 00:07:18.829 --> 00:07:21.069 that even before his major works were published, 00:07:21.290 --> 00:07:24.569 his skepticism was already so disruptive. He 00:07:24.569 --> 00:07:26.310 was related to another controversial figure, 00:07:26.670 --> 00:07:30.199 Uriel da Costa. Yes. Screw his mother. DaCosta 00:07:30.199 --> 00:07:32.259 had been excommunicated twice for questioning 00:07:32.259 --> 00:07:35.379 fundamentals. He was a cautionary tale. So Spinoza 00:07:35.379 --> 00:07:38.100 wasn't the first, but his case was handled with 00:07:38.100 --> 00:07:42.110 this unprecedented finality. Spinoza's case was 00:07:42.110 --> 00:07:44.709 different because he refused to repent. He refused 00:07:44.709 --> 00:07:48.269 to recant. He just accepted the expulsion, embraced 00:07:48.269 --> 00:07:51.269 his isolation, and moved on. The harem was never 00:07:51.269 --> 00:07:53.149 rescinded because, frankly, there was nothing 00:07:53.149 --> 00:07:55.490 Spinoza wanted to return to. He distanced himself 00:07:55.490 --> 00:07:57.709 from all religious affiliations. He didn't convert 00:07:57.709 --> 00:07:59.870 to Christianity. No, he became purely secular, 00:08:00.089 --> 00:08:02.810 a man of philosophy alone. And his life completely 00:08:02.810 --> 00:08:06.009 shifts. He dedicates himself entirely to philosophical 00:08:06.009 --> 00:08:09.310 inquiry, and he sustains himself through a truly 00:08:09.310 --> 00:08:13.629 remarkable trade. It's a beautifully symbolic 00:08:13.629 --> 00:08:16.410 choice, really, when you think about it. Lens 00:08:16.410 --> 00:08:19.149 grinding requires meticulous precision, enormous 00:08:19.149 --> 00:08:21.670 patience, and a deep scientific understanding 00:08:21.670 --> 00:08:24.250 of light and optics. I mean, these are the very 00:08:24.250 --> 00:08:27.029 tools of the scientific revolution. He became 00:08:27.029 --> 00:08:29.509 a highly skilled craftsman, constructing optical 00:08:29.509 --> 00:08:32.169 instruments, microscopes, telescopes. And the 00:08:32.169 --> 00:08:35.250 quality wasn't just good. It was recognized by 00:08:35.250 --> 00:08:37.590 the intellectual elite of Europe. Absolutely. 00:08:38.379 --> 00:08:40.519 Christian Huygens, who was one of the most important 00:08:40.519 --> 00:08:43.559 astronomers and physicists of the age, he praised 00:08:43.559 --> 00:08:46.600 the quality of Spinoza's lenses. Wow. So this 00:08:46.600 --> 00:08:49.159 shows us that Spinoza was still deeply embedded 00:08:49.159 --> 00:08:51.519 in the intellectual community, corresponding 00:08:51.519 --> 00:08:54.340 with them, working alongside the scientific revolution, 00:08:54.639 --> 00:08:57.659 even while living this solitary, frugal life 00:08:57.659 --> 00:09:00.320 that relied heavily on occasional support from 00:09:00.320 --> 00:09:02.720 his loyal friends. This shift from prominent 00:09:02.720 --> 00:09:05.899 merchant's son to anonymous, isolated craftsman, 00:09:05.960 --> 00:09:20.129 it forced him to adopt a philosophy. The Thorney 00:09:20.129 --> 00:09:37.929 Rose. Beautiful, insightful philosophy, but protected 00:09:37.929 --> 00:09:42.250 by the thorns of caution. So Spinoza is now isolated, 00:09:42.629 --> 00:09:46.000 cautious. but intensely intellectually active. 00:09:46.220 --> 00:09:49.759 This period after 1656 really defines the trajectory 00:09:49.759 --> 00:09:52.139 of his thought. He needs the tools to construct 00:09:52.139 --> 00:09:54.580 his radical philosophy. And those tools came 00:09:54.580 --> 00:09:56.720 from his new intellectual circle. His education 00:09:56.720 --> 00:09:59.840 in Latin, the arts and sciences, began in earnest 00:09:59.840 --> 00:10:02.240 with a man named Franciscus van den Enden. And 00:10:02.240 --> 00:10:04.419 who was he? A fascinating character, a former 00:10:04.419 --> 00:10:06.559 Jesuit, but also a staunch political radical, 00:10:06.679 --> 00:10:09.600 and by many accounts, an avowed atheist. Van 00:10:09.600 --> 00:10:11.279 den Enden is the one who introduced him to modern 00:10:11.279 --> 00:10:13.639 philosophy, with René Descartes being the dominant 00:10:13.639 --> 00:10:15.960 influence at the time. Descartes, the man who 00:10:15.960 --> 00:10:17.860 argued for radical doubt and established that 00:10:17.860 --> 00:10:21.100 famous dualism of mind and body. Spinoza clearly 00:10:21.100 --> 00:10:23.879 found his initial framework there. He did, but 00:10:23.879 --> 00:10:26.769 he very quickly moved past Descartes. It was 00:10:26.769 --> 00:10:29.190 through this period that Spinoza attracted what 00:10:29.190 --> 00:10:32.169 was often derisively called a philosophical sect. 00:10:32.450 --> 00:10:35.250 A sect. It was a dedicated circle of followers 00:10:35.250 --> 00:10:38.230 and friends, people like Lodewijk Meyer, Jarek 00:10:38.230 --> 00:10:40.730 Gels, who were often secularized freethinkers, 00:10:40.730 --> 00:10:43.009 religious dissidents, or members of these sort 00:10:43.009 --> 00:10:45.470 of fringe Christian groups like the Collegians. 00:10:45.809 --> 00:10:48.230 But this wasn't just a book club, though. The 00:10:48.230 --> 00:10:50.830 sources suggest this group functioned as a crucial 00:10:50.830 --> 00:10:53.950 intellectual crucible for him. It was their private 00:10:53.950 --> 00:10:57.590 university. It was a testing ground. They meticulously 00:10:57.590 --> 00:10:59.690 scrutinized early drafts of his masterpiece, 00:11:00.009 --> 00:11:02.470 The Ethics. They were a mirror for his ideas, 00:11:02.750 --> 00:11:05.450 allowing him to hone his arguments against critical 00:11:05.450 --> 00:11:07.929 intelligent minds. But they paid a social price 00:11:07.929 --> 00:11:10.490 for it. Oh, yes. They were publicly despised 00:11:10.490 --> 00:11:13.330 in Amsterdam, broadly disparaged as dangerous 00:11:13.330 --> 00:11:16.190 atheists just for questioning orthodox religious 00:11:16.190 --> 00:11:19.070 views. And this, of course, only reinforced Spinoza's 00:11:19.070 --> 00:11:23.600 need for caution. Now, when he decided to finally 00:11:23.600 --> 00:11:26.100 publish something under his own name, he didn't 00:11:26.100 --> 00:11:28.139 start with his own revolutionary system. His 00:11:28.139 --> 00:11:30.679 first major publication was actually an exposition 00:11:30.679 --> 00:11:33.019 of Descartes. That's right. But it was revolutionary 00:11:33.019 --> 00:11:36.440 for its method. Exactly. His Descartes Principles 00:11:36.440 --> 00:11:39.480 of Philosophy from 1663 was crucial not for its 00:11:39.480 --> 00:11:42.539 content, but for its form. It's where he established 00:11:42.539 --> 00:11:45.019 his famous geometric method. We often hear this 00:11:45.019 --> 00:11:47.580 phrase geometric method, but why was it so important 00:11:47.580 --> 00:11:50.440 to a philosopher? I mean, why is structure philosophy 00:11:50.440 --> 00:11:53.460 like Euclid's geometry? Spinoza believed that 00:11:53.460 --> 00:11:55.679 traditional philosophical prose, which relies 00:11:55.679 --> 00:11:59.440 on, you know, rhetoric, metaphor, persuasion. 00:12:00.200 --> 00:12:02.480 It was inherently flawed. It was subject to human 00:12:02.480 --> 00:12:05.100 bias and emotion. He wanted to remove the messy 00:12:05.100 --> 00:12:07.120 human element. He wanted to remove all of it. 00:12:07.159 --> 00:12:10.240 He saw mathematics, particularly geometry, as 00:12:10.240 --> 00:12:13.000 the only pure path to truth because it begins 00:12:13.000 --> 00:12:15.799 from self -evident definitions and axioms and 00:12:15.799 --> 00:12:18.480 then proceeds through these absolutely necessary 00:12:18.480 --> 00:12:21.100 propositions and proofs. So she's trying to demonstrate 00:12:21.100 --> 00:12:23.799 the necessity of his conclusions rather than 00:12:23.799 --> 00:12:26.440 merely arguing for them. It was an attempt to 00:12:26.440 --> 00:12:29.120 make philosophy as demonstrable and irrefutable 00:12:29.120 --> 00:12:32.740 as two plus two equals four. He saw this rigorous 00:12:32.740 --> 00:12:35.159 mathematical structure as the key to reaching 00:12:35.159 --> 00:12:37.720 the highest truth and ultimately achieving a 00:12:37.720 --> 00:12:40.179 state of intellectual peace and harmony. If you 00:12:40.179 --> 00:12:42.639 accept the starting points. You must accept the 00:12:42.639 --> 00:12:44.860 conclusions. There's no room for debate. And 00:12:44.860 --> 00:12:47.580 this method, the scaffolding, is what he would 00:12:47.580 --> 00:12:51.159 use to build his greatest work, the ethics. That 00:12:51.159 --> 00:12:53.700 structural rigor is astonishing. But he then 00:12:53.700 --> 00:12:56.659 followed it up with a book that was, well, intentionally 00:12:56.659 --> 00:12:59.340 inflammatory. It was designed to disrupt the 00:12:59.340 --> 00:13:01.860 political order, the Tractatus Theologico -Politicus, 00:13:02.059 --> 00:13:06.659 the TTP. The TTP, published in 1670, is rightly 00:13:06.659 --> 00:13:09.639 described by our sources as one of the most important 00:13:09.639 --> 00:13:12.580 books of Western thought. He started writing 00:13:12.580 --> 00:13:15.720 it around 1665, prompted by the chaotic political 00:13:15.720 --> 00:13:18.539 environment of the Second Anglo -Dutch War. It 00:13:18.539 --> 00:13:20.539 was a comprehensive intervention into theology, 00:13:20.820 --> 00:13:24.059 politics, and war. So what were the core revolutionary 00:13:24.059 --> 00:13:26.600 arguments that sent Europe into a complete uproar? 00:13:26.659 --> 00:13:29.320 There were two major lines of attack, both utterly 00:13:29.320 --> 00:13:32.000 radical for the time. First, he used rigorous 00:13:32.000 --> 00:13:34.360 biblical criticism and legal analysis to argue 00:13:34.360 --> 00:13:36.679 for the complete separation of church and state. 00:13:36.820 --> 00:13:38.940 And what did that mean practically? It meant 00:13:38.940 --> 00:13:41.360 that ecclesiastic authority should have absolutely 00:13:41.360 --> 00:13:44.019 no role in the function of a secular democratic 00:13:44.019 --> 00:13:46.740 state. So religious leaders shouldn't be dictating 00:13:46.740 --> 00:13:50.120 civil law or foreign policy or public education. 00:13:50.379 --> 00:13:52.519 I mean, that is a truly modern concept being 00:13:52.519 --> 00:13:54.700 birthed right there. It is the foundation of 00:13:54.700 --> 00:13:57.419 secular liberalism. And the second radical argument 00:13:57.419 --> 00:14:00.500 was theological. He subjected the Hebrew Bible 00:14:00.500 --> 00:14:03.720 to unprecedented critical scrutiny. How so? He 00:14:03.720 --> 00:14:06.779 openly questioned its divine origin. He argued 00:14:06.779 --> 00:14:08.759 that the prophets were men of vivid imagination, 00:14:09.039 --> 00:14:11.500 not necessarily reliable conduits of objective 00:14:11.500 --> 00:14:14.440 truth, and that the laws in the Bible were specific 00:14:14.440 --> 00:14:17.320 to ancient Jewish kingdoms and held no legal 00:14:17.320 --> 00:14:19.899 authority over modern secular governments. So 00:14:19.899 --> 00:14:22.899 the TTP was essentially a demolition of theocracy. 00:14:22.960 --> 00:14:25.639 It questioned the very concept of divine revelation 00:14:25.639 --> 00:14:28.080 as a source of political authority. Exactly. 00:14:28.100 --> 00:14:31.200 And for that reason, it had to be published anonymously 00:14:31.200 --> 00:14:33.620 under a fictitious publisher and a fake place 00:14:33.620 --> 00:14:36.559 of publication. The scandal was immediate and 00:14:36.559 --> 00:14:39.919 intense. Scholars all across Europe, even Thomas 00:14:39.919 --> 00:14:42.460 Hobbes, who ironically agreed with many of the 00:14:42.460 --> 00:14:46.000 political conclusions, attacked the TTP as dangerous, 00:14:46.139 --> 00:14:49.460 subversive and undermining the very foundations 00:14:49.460 --> 00:14:52.629 of civil society. And Spinoza. knew the risks 00:14:52.629 --> 00:14:55.049 intimately, didn't he? He had the tragic fate 00:14:55.049 --> 00:14:57.669 of his friend to remember. He did. The memory 00:14:57.669 --> 00:15:01.309 of Adrian Korbeck was a potent lesson. Korbeck 00:15:01.309 --> 00:15:03.909 had published similar ideas denying divine authorship 00:15:03.909 --> 00:15:07.070 the impossibility of miracles, but he made a 00:15:07.070 --> 00:15:09.809 fatal error. Which was? He published in Dutch. 00:15:10.070 --> 00:15:13.450 For the masses. He was arrested, thrown in prison, 00:15:13.549 --> 00:15:15.590 and died shortly afterward from the harsh conditions. 00:15:15.970 --> 00:15:19.149 So Spinoza's Kant motto... dictated his publishing 00:15:19.149 --> 00:15:21.769 strategy for the TTP. It absolutely confirmed 00:15:21.769 --> 00:15:24.129 it. His book was significantly safer because 00:15:24.129 --> 00:15:26.309 it was written in Latin. He was intentionally 00:15:26.309 --> 00:15:29.210 targeting a narrower intellectual and educated 00:15:29.210 --> 00:15:32.509 elite academics, philosophers, theologians. And 00:15:32.509 --> 00:15:34.669 the sources confirmed this was a deliberate strategy. 00:15:34.929 --> 00:15:37.769 Oh, yes. Spinoza explicitly forbade its translation 00:15:37.769 --> 00:15:40.809 into Dutch. He wanted to ensure the general populace, 00:15:40.830 --> 00:15:43.169 the potentially riotous or easily offended public, 00:15:43.429 --> 00:15:45.730 wouldn't be able to easily access or weaponize 00:15:45.730 --> 00:15:48.629 his ideas. aiming for an intellectual revolution, 00:15:48.690 --> 00:15:52.389 not a street fight. The TTP was his public political 00:15:52.389 --> 00:15:55.850 intervention. But the Ethics, which was published 00:15:55.850 --> 00:15:58.529 after he died, is his attempt to redefine reality 00:15:58.529 --> 00:16:01.529 itself. Let's move to the core of his thought. 00:16:01.690 --> 00:16:04.129 The system that tries to explain the universe, 00:16:04.370 --> 00:16:07.830 God, humanity, and freedom all derive logically 00:16:07.830 --> 00:16:11.490 using that geometric method. The Ethics is Spinoza's 00:16:11.490 --> 00:16:14.480 profoundest philosophical legacy. It belongs 00:16:14.480 --> 00:16:17.159 firmly to that 17th century rationalist school, 00:16:17.379 --> 00:16:19.960 along with Descartes and Leibniz. It assumes 00:16:19.960 --> 00:16:22.220 that reality is perfectly intelligible to reason, 00:16:22.379 --> 00:16:25.460 just like mathematics is. He's aiming for perfect 00:16:25.460 --> 00:16:27.659 logical deduction from self -evident truths. 00:16:27.899 --> 00:16:30.360 That's a goal. But he takes this giant leap past 00:16:30.360 --> 00:16:32.799 his predecessor, Descartes, by collapsing all 00:16:32.799 --> 00:16:35.440 of reality into a single entity. He rejects the 00:16:35.440 --> 00:16:37.820 idea of mind and body as separate things. He 00:16:37.820 --> 00:16:39.399 does, which is why we have to start with his 00:16:39.399 --> 00:16:41.360 metaphysical triad, substance attributes and 00:16:41.360 --> 00:16:43.409 modes. Let's break down substance first. Okay, 00:16:43.470 --> 00:16:45.509 what is substance? Substance is the absolute 00:16:45.509 --> 00:16:47.850 foundation of his entire system, and he defines 00:16:47.850 --> 00:16:50.470 it with that geometric rigor. Substance is that 00:16:50.470 --> 00:16:52.710 which is conceived through itself and requires 00:16:52.710 --> 00:16:55.049 nothing external for its understanding or existence. 00:16:55.549 --> 00:16:57.509 So it's completely self -sufficient. It is the 00:16:57.509 --> 00:17:01.389 ultimate cause of itself, or kazasui. It is eternal, 00:17:01.590 --> 00:17:05.089 infinite, and it necessarily exists. It can't 00:17:05.089 --> 00:17:08.269 not exist. And the immediate revolutionary logical 00:17:08.269 --> 00:17:10.970 deduction he makes from this definition is that 00:17:10.970 --> 00:17:13.160 there can only be one such thing. Precisely. 00:17:13.160 --> 00:17:14.940 If there were two substances, they would have 00:17:14.940 --> 00:17:16.720 to limit each other, right? Which would make 00:17:16.720 --> 00:17:18.680 neither one of them truly infinite. Therefore, 00:17:18.900 --> 00:17:21.759 there can only be one absolutely infinite, eternal, 00:17:21.880 --> 00:17:24.660 and independent substance. And that single substance, 00:17:24.900 --> 00:17:28.380 Spinoza declares, is God. God or nature. Okay, 00:17:28.420 --> 00:17:30.279 now let's define the other two terms, starting 00:17:30.279 --> 00:17:32.259 with modes. I think those are a little easier 00:17:32.259 --> 00:17:35.619 to grasp. Modes are the exact opposite of substance. 00:17:35.880 --> 00:17:37.960 They are things that cannot exist independently. 00:17:38.500 --> 00:17:41.059 They must exist as a modification of something 00:17:41.059 --> 00:17:43.339 else. So everything we see and touch. Exactly. 00:17:43.660 --> 00:17:46.400 Modes include all individual objects, properties, 00:17:46.660 --> 00:17:49.259 relations, events, everything we see, touch, 00:17:49.380 --> 00:17:52.319 or think about. So my body is a mode, my individual 00:17:52.319 --> 00:17:55.460 thoughts are modes, and the entire physical universe, 00:17:55.660 --> 00:17:58.819 the cosmos itself, is a giant, though infinite, 00:17:59.059 --> 00:18:01.589 mode of substance. That's correct. It is the 00:18:01.589 --> 00:18:04.569 structure or the modification, not the underlying 00:18:04.569 --> 00:18:07.430 essence itself. Okay, which brings us to attributes, 00:18:07.710 --> 00:18:09.710 the critical middle term that connects the two. 00:18:09.869 --> 00:18:12.509 How does Spinoza define attributes and how do 00:18:12.509 --> 00:18:14.710 they function here? Attributes are what the intellect 00:18:14.710 --> 00:18:17.349 perceives as constituting the very essence of 00:18:17.349 --> 00:18:21.130 substance. Now, God, being the one infinite substance, 00:18:21.509 --> 00:18:24.190 must have an infinite number of attributes. But 00:18:24.190 --> 00:18:26.559 we can't perceive all of them. As finite human 00:18:26.559 --> 00:18:29.940 beings, as modes, we are only aware of two of 00:18:29.940 --> 00:18:32.759 these infinite attributes, thought, the mental 00:18:32.759 --> 00:18:35.880 or ideational, and extension. the physical or 00:18:35.880 --> 00:18:38.720 spatial. So we only get to see two sides of an 00:18:38.720 --> 00:18:41.299 infinite coin. And those two sides, thought and 00:18:41.299 --> 00:18:44.380 extension, they represent complete parallel accounts 00:18:44.380 --> 00:18:47.420 of reality. Exactly. There are like two fundamentally 00:18:47.420 --> 00:18:49.720 different languages that perfectly describe the 00:18:49.720 --> 00:18:52.440 exact same event. They never interact. Thought 00:18:52.440 --> 00:18:54.660 does not cause extension and extension does not 00:18:54.660 --> 00:18:56.779 cause thought. They just mirror each other. They 00:18:56.779 --> 00:18:58.380 perfectly mirror each other because they are 00:18:58.380 --> 00:19:01.119 both expressions of the single unified substance. 00:19:01.480 --> 00:19:04.160 This technical framework brings us to the most... 00:19:04.430 --> 00:19:07.289 defining, and, I guess, notorious phrase in his 00:19:07.289 --> 00:19:11.069 entire philosophy, Diosi Venatra, God or Nature. 00:19:11.710 --> 00:19:14.750 Spinoza's definition of God is definitive. A 00:19:14.750 --> 00:19:16.650 substance consisting of infinite attributes. 00:19:17.049 --> 00:19:20.329 He argues God must exist because any cause that 00:19:20.329 --> 00:19:22.170 could prevent the existence of an absolutely 00:19:22.170 --> 00:19:24.609 infinite being would have to be either external 00:19:24.609 --> 00:19:26.769 to it. Which is impossible since substance is 00:19:26.769 --> 00:19:29.509 self -caused. Right. Or it would have to be internal, 00:19:29.650 --> 00:19:32.009 which would contradict the very definition of 00:19:32.009 --> 00:19:34.890 an infinite being. So existence follows necessarily 00:19:34.890 --> 00:19:37.869 from the definition. This single infinite necessary 00:19:37.869 --> 00:19:41.369 substance is God or nature. They are synonymous. 00:19:41.450 --> 00:19:43.849 Let's spend some time on this because this is. 00:19:43.920 --> 00:19:46.119 the concept that earned him the title of atheist 00:19:46.119 --> 00:19:48.720 and heretic. This God is radically impersonal. 00:19:48.740 --> 00:19:51.240 What attributes of the traditional Abrahamic 00:19:51.240 --> 00:19:54.180 God does Spinoza's God not possess? Well, pretty 00:19:54.180 --> 00:19:57.279 much all of them. Spinoza's God lacks all anthropomorphic 00:19:57.279 --> 00:19:59.680 traits. This God is not an individual entity, 00:19:59.819 --> 00:20:02.279 not a conscious creator. So no personality. No 00:20:02.279 --> 00:20:05.079 personality, no consciousness, no intelligence, 00:20:05.259 --> 00:20:08.640 no feeling, no free will. And crucially, Spinoza 00:20:08.640 --> 00:20:10.920 argues God does not act according to purpose. 00:20:11.680 --> 00:20:14.599 There is no divine plan. No teleology. None. 00:20:14.779 --> 00:20:16.779 Everything just happens from necessary natural 00:20:16.779 --> 00:20:19.579 law, not from divine intention. So the idea that 00:20:19.579 --> 00:20:21.779 God created the world for a reason or that God 00:20:21.779 --> 00:20:24.000 loves you and answers your prayers, all of that 00:20:24.000 --> 00:20:26.430 is wiped away. From Spinoza's perspective, yes. 00:20:26.670 --> 00:20:30.069 He viewed the idea of God acting for a purpose 00:20:30.069 --> 00:20:33.069 like creating humanity as a mere human illusion 00:20:33.069 --> 00:20:35.869 born from our ignorance. If God had a purpose, 00:20:36.029 --> 00:20:38.289 it would imply God lacked something and needed 00:20:38.289 --> 00:20:40.130 to achieve it. Which contradicts the definition 00:20:40.130 --> 00:20:42.930 of an infinite perfect substance. Exactly. God 00:20:42.930 --> 00:20:45.769 is existence. God is the underlying law and structure 00:20:45.769 --> 00:20:48.519 of the universe, not a character in it. When 00:20:48.519 --> 00:20:50.700 his critics accused him of crude materialism, 00:20:50.700 --> 00:20:53.960 of just equating God with rocks and trees, he 00:20:53.960 --> 00:20:57.119 strongly objected. How did he clarify this identity 00:20:57.119 --> 00:21:00.319 of God in nature? He was very emphatic in denying 00:21:00.319 --> 00:21:03.160 that he equated God with mere corporeal matter. 00:21:03.400 --> 00:21:06.019 The material world, the physical cosmos, that's 00:21:06.019 --> 00:21:08.400 just a modification expressed under the attribute 00:21:08.400 --> 00:21:10.819 of extension. It is not the whole of God. So 00:21:10.819 --> 00:21:13.240 how did he explain it? Well, the German philosopher 00:21:13.240 --> 00:21:16.099 Karl Jaspers made a distinction that is essential 00:21:16.099 --> 00:21:18.500 to understanding Spinoza here. He distinguished 00:21:18.500 --> 00:21:22.299 between natura naturans and naturata. Okay, let's 00:21:22.299 --> 00:21:24.119 hear that distinction because it sounds key to 00:21:24.119 --> 00:21:27.819 reconciling God and nature. Naturalations is 00:21:27.819 --> 00:21:30.509 nature naturing. This is the active, eternal, 00:21:30.670 --> 00:21:33.150 and necessary essence of everything. It's the 00:21:33.150 --> 00:21:35.950 underlying power and source of all things. This 00:21:35.950 --> 00:21:40.289 is God, the infinite substance. That is nature 00:21:40.289 --> 00:21:43.750 already created. This is the finite, structured, 00:21:43.970 --> 00:21:46.349 physical world of modes that results from the 00:21:46.349 --> 00:21:49.369 necessary laws of naturans. So God is the cause. 00:21:49.960 --> 00:21:52.660 The world is the effect. They are identical in 00:21:52.660 --> 00:21:54.960 essence, but not interchangeable in function. 00:21:55.240 --> 00:21:58.059 So some scholars argue this means he's not really 00:21:58.059 --> 00:21:59.960 a pantheist where God is everything, but maybe 00:21:59.960 --> 00:22:03.220 a panentheist, that the world is in God, but 00:22:03.220 --> 00:22:05.960 God is greater than the world. Does that distinction 00:22:05.960 --> 00:22:08.200 matter for our understanding here? It matters 00:22:08.200 --> 00:22:10.960 greatly for theological debate, sure. But for 00:22:10.960 --> 00:22:13.019 the listener, I think the takeaway is that Spinoza 00:22:13.019 --> 00:22:15.640 created a unified monistic system where nothing 00:22:15.640 --> 00:22:19.119 exists outside of God. Whether you call it panentheism 00:22:19.119 --> 00:22:22.019 or classical pantheism, the essential point remains. 00:22:22.579 --> 00:22:25.700 There is only one substance and everything, including 00:22:25.700 --> 00:22:28.200 our mind, follows from the necessity of that 00:22:28.200 --> 00:22:30.640 substance. And this leads us to the most intellectually 00:22:30.640 --> 00:22:33.700 challenging consequence of his system. Strict 00:22:33.700 --> 00:22:37.779 determinism. If God nature is one necessary substance, 00:22:38.160 --> 00:22:40.700 then everything that happens must follow necessarily 00:22:40.700 --> 00:22:43.740 from its laws. Does that leave any room at all 00:22:43.740 --> 00:22:46.200 for human free will? It leaves none whatsoever. 00:22:46.539 --> 00:22:49.039 Spinoza states it plainly. Things could not have 00:22:49.039 --> 00:22:51.579 been produced by God in any other way or in any 00:22:51.579 --> 00:22:53.940 other order than is the case. The universe is 00:22:53.940 --> 00:22:56.599 strictly necessary, fixed by immutable causality. 00:22:56.799 --> 00:22:59.339 No contingencies, no accidents. No free choices 00:22:59.339 --> 00:23:01.259 in the libertarian sense. Nothing could have 00:23:01.259 --> 00:23:03.619 been different. But wait a minute. If everything 00:23:03.619 --> 00:23:05.900 is determined, if my decision to drink coffee 00:23:05.900 --> 00:23:08.220 this morning was determined by the entire causal 00:23:08.220 --> 00:23:10.759 chain of the universe stretching back to infinity, 00:23:11.470 --> 00:23:14.630 Why bother striving for anything? I mean, doesn't 00:23:14.630 --> 00:23:18.230 this lead straight to fatalism or nihilism? That 00:23:18.230 --> 00:23:20.569 is the most common objection. And Spinoza's response 00:23:20.569 --> 00:23:24.740 is, I think. really elegant. He says determinism 00:23:24.740 --> 00:23:27.559 doesn't remove action, it only removes the illusion 00:23:27.559 --> 00:23:30.619 of uncaused action. What does he mean? We strive, 00:23:30.900 --> 00:23:33.859 what he calls conatus, because it is our nature, 00:23:33.960 --> 00:23:36.839 our very essence, to strive to persevere in our 00:23:36.839 --> 00:23:40.619 being. That striving itself is determined. Spinoza 00:23:40.619 --> 00:23:42.740 argues that we feel compelled to act, but we 00:23:42.740 --> 00:23:44.960 confuse that feeling of compulsion with the feeling 00:23:44.960 --> 00:23:47.450 of choice. And he gave us that famous quote about 00:23:47.450 --> 00:23:49.869 the infant to illustrate how widespread this 00:23:49.869 --> 00:23:52.109 illusion is. It's highly memorable because it 00:23:52.109 --> 00:23:54.109 just strips away our most cherished illusion. 00:23:54.269 --> 00:23:57.369 He said, the infant believes that it is by free 00:23:57.369 --> 00:23:59.569 will that it seeks the breast. The angry boy 00:23:59.569 --> 00:24:01.589 believes that by free will he wishes vengeance. 00:24:01.910 --> 00:24:03.990 All believe that they speak by a free command 00:24:03.990 --> 00:24:06.410 of the mind, whilst in truth they have no power 00:24:06.410 --> 00:24:08.970 to restrain the impulse. And his stark conclusion 00:24:08.970 --> 00:24:11.430 from that is that men are conscious of their 00:24:11.430 --> 00:24:13.970 desire and unaware of the causes by which their 00:24:13.970 --> 00:24:17.019 desires are determined. Free will, for Spinoza, 00:24:17.079 --> 00:24:19.160 is simply the name we give to our profound ignorance 00:24:19.160 --> 00:24:22.180 of the true causes acting upon us. So let's return 00:24:22.180 --> 00:24:25.799 to the mind and body. Spinoza rejected Cartesian 00:24:25.799 --> 00:24:29.059 dualism, that the mind is a separate non -physical 00:24:29.059 --> 00:24:31.420 thing that somehow interacts with the physical 00:24:31.420 --> 00:24:35.460 body. How does his monism account for the connection 00:24:35.460 --> 00:24:39.880 between my thought and my physical action? Spinoza's 00:24:39.880 --> 00:24:42.640 monism is radical. He argues that the mind and 00:24:42.640 --> 00:24:44.579 the body are one and the same thing, but they 00:24:44.579 --> 00:24:46.720 are just conceived under two different attributes, 00:24:47.059 --> 00:24:49.579 thought or extension. Can you give an analogy 00:24:49.579 --> 00:24:51.900 for that? It's a tricky concept. Sure. Think 00:24:51.900 --> 00:24:54.319 of it like this. If I decide to raise my hand, 00:24:54.400 --> 00:24:56.720 that decision, that idea, is a modification, 00:24:57.019 --> 00:24:59.200 a mode of substance under the attribute of thought. 00:24:59.380 --> 00:25:02.019 The physical act of my hand rising is the exact 00:25:02.019 --> 00:25:04.859 same modification, but it's perceived under the 00:25:04.859 --> 00:25:07.400 attribute of extension. So it's like a song. 00:25:07.920 --> 00:25:10.019 The sheet music is the thought, and the sound 00:25:10.019 --> 00:25:12.200 waves are the extension. They're two completely 00:25:12.200 --> 00:25:14.079 different ways of representing the same underlying 00:25:14.079 --> 00:25:16.859 piece of music. That is an excellent analogy. 00:25:17.140 --> 00:25:19.059 But the sheet music doesn't cause the sound waves, 00:25:19.220 --> 00:25:21.180 and vice versa. They're just perfectly synchronized 00:25:21.180 --> 00:25:23.240 representations of the same thing. That's it. 00:25:23.859 --> 00:25:26.539 Spinoza calls this the doctrine of psychophysical 00:25:26.539 --> 00:25:29.700 parallelism. The order and connection of ideas 00:25:29.700 --> 00:25:32.019 are the same as the order and connection of things. 00:25:32.259 --> 00:25:35.180 They are two faces of the same coin, which is 00:25:35.180 --> 00:25:38.500 the underlying substance. This completely eliminates 00:25:38.500 --> 00:25:41.119 the need to explain how an immaterial mind can 00:25:41.119 --> 00:25:44.380 push a material body around, which was the central, 00:25:44.460 --> 00:25:56.079 unsolvable problem of Cartesian dualism. but 00:25:56.079 --> 00:25:59.099 as cognitive processes. This is truly modern 00:25:59.099 --> 00:26:01.900 thinking. Spinoza views emotions, he calls them 00:26:01.900 --> 00:26:04.859 effects, as highly cognitive. He thinks they're 00:26:04.859 --> 00:26:06.859 often caused by flawed perceptions, which he 00:26:06.859 --> 00:26:09.819 calls inadequate ideas. Emotions for him are 00:26:09.819 --> 00:26:12.420 either passive or active. That's a passive emotion. 00:26:12.700 --> 00:26:14.940 A passive emotion is one where we suffer because 00:26:14.940 --> 00:26:17.140 we don't understand the true cause of what's 00:26:17.140 --> 00:26:20.440 happening to us. We are, in his terms, enslaved 00:26:20.440 --> 00:26:23.400 by forces external to our understanding. And 00:26:23.400 --> 00:26:25.799 his great insight. one that really anticipates 00:26:25.799 --> 00:26:28.259 therapeutic practice centuries later, is how 00:26:28.259 --> 00:26:30.779 we move from that passive suffering to active 00:26:30.779 --> 00:26:33.799 understanding. Exactly. The power of his insight 00:26:33.799 --> 00:26:37.079 lies in this transformation. When we grasp the 00:26:37.079 --> 00:26:40.579 true necessary cause of a passive emotion, when 00:26:40.579 --> 00:26:43.740 we understand why we are suffering, that knowledge 00:26:43.740 --> 00:26:46.440 transforms the emotion into an active emotion. 00:26:46.819 --> 00:26:49.319 An active emotion is one that's derived from 00:26:49.319 --> 00:26:51.720 reason and understanding. Can you give us a concrete 00:26:51.720 --> 00:26:54.710 example of that shift? Certainly. Imagine you 00:26:54.710 --> 00:26:57.130 were insulted by a colleague at work. If you 00:26:57.130 --> 00:26:59.769 react with immediate, overwhelming anger, that 00:26:59.769 --> 00:27:02.509 anger is a passive emotion, you are suffering 00:27:02.509 --> 00:27:05.569 because of an external cause, the insult, you 00:27:05.569 --> 00:27:08.549 are enslaved by the event. Spinoza would argue 00:27:08.549 --> 00:27:10.609 that if you step back and through reason realize 00:27:10.609 --> 00:27:12.470 that the insult was not a reflection of your 00:27:12.470 --> 00:27:14.509 worth, but rather the necessary consequence of 00:27:14.509 --> 00:27:16.990 the colleague's own personal insecurity or their 00:27:16.990 --> 00:27:19.970 desperation or just a bad temper, you now see 00:27:19.970 --> 00:27:21.950 the cause. You transform the feeling of being 00:27:21.950 --> 00:27:24.390 personal victimized into the intellectual understanding 00:27:24.390 --> 00:27:28.019 of necessity. Yes. And that intellectual understanding 00:27:28.019 --> 00:27:30.880 fundamentally diminishes the emotional power 00:27:30.880 --> 00:27:33.599 of the event over you. The anger might transform 00:27:33.599 --> 00:27:35.799 into an act of emotion, maybe a rational pity, 00:27:35.980 --> 00:27:39.859 or simply acceptance. You have gained power by 00:27:39.859 --> 00:27:43.500 replacing an inadequate passive idea, I was personally 00:27:43.500 --> 00:27:46.950 wronged, with an adequate rational idea. the 00:27:46.950 --> 00:27:49.029 colleagues' action was a necessary determined 00:27:49.029 --> 00:27:51.450 outcome of their condition. And that process 00:27:51.450 --> 00:27:54.150 of achieving adequate knowledge is the path to 00:27:54.150 --> 00:27:56.789 freedom. It's the whole game. Spinoza's system, 00:27:56.930 --> 00:28:00.089 while it is rigorously intellectual, is deeply 00:28:00.089 --> 00:28:02.930 concerned with how humans actually live and how 00:28:02.930 --> 00:28:05.309 they can achieve the best possible state of existence, 00:28:05.430 --> 00:28:07.450 both individually and, you know, collectively. 00:28:07.730 --> 00:28:10.049 Yes, his politics, though they're often seen 00:28:10.049 --> 00:28:12.029 as secondary to the ethics, are intrinsically 00:28:12.029 --> 00:28:14.230 linked to his ethical goal of achieving freedom 00:28:14.230 --> 00:28:17.160 within this necessary determined world. His final 00:28:17.160 --> 00:28:19.180 unfinished work was the Tractatus Politicus, 00:28:19.359 --> 00:28:22.359 or TP, written in 1676. What was the goal of 00:28:22.359 --> 00:28:25.019 the TP? It was intended to be a practical manual 00:28:25.019 --> 00:28:28.059 on good state function. Following his earlier 00:28:28.059 --> 00:28:31.000 secular arguments in the TTP, the TTP set out 00:28:31.000 --> 00:28:33.319 to demonstrate that among all political arrangements, 00:28:33.700 --> 00:28:37.539 monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, that democratic 00:28:37.539 --> 00:28:40.019 states are the best form of government. Why do 00:28:40.019 --> 00:28:42.619 you think that? Because he believed they most 00:28:42.619 --> 00:28:45.059 closely align with the natural striving of the 00:28:45.059 --> 00:28:48.420 individual, the canatus, to live freely and rationally. 00:28:48.539 --> 00:28:51.440 But the sources also flag a significant contradiction 00:28:51.440 --> 00:28:54.559 here. Despite his radical secularism and his 00:28:54.559 --> 00:28:57.579 pro -democracy stance, his social views on gender 00:28:57.579 --> 00:29:00.640 were, well, they were conventional for the time. 00:29:00.779 --> 00:29:02.980 They were disappointingly conventional. The TP 00:29:02.980 --> 00:29:06.319 included a very terse, unelaborated section concluding 00:29:06.319 --> 00:29:08.279 that women were naturally subordinate to men. 00:29:08.400 --> 00:29:10.900 And why? He just attributed this to inherent 00:29:10.900 --> 00:29:12.900 differences that he believed made them unfit 00:29:12.900 --> 00:29:15.700 for public office or political rule. While we... 00:29:16.039 --> 00:29:18.259 rightly judge this today, it is important to 00:29:18.259 --> 00:29:20.099 remember that his radicalism was focused purely 00:29:20.099 --> 00:29:22.299 on metaphysics and the separation of political 00:29:22.299 --> 00:29:24.819 and religious power, not on social hierarchy. 00:29:25.279 --> 00:29:27.839 Okay, let's pivot to his core ethical concern, 00:29:27.940 --> 00:29:29.720 because this is the entire point of the ethics, 00:29:29.880 --> 00:29:33.059 right? How does one achieve salvation or blessedness 00:29:33.059 --> 00:29:36.559 in a determined universe with a completely impersonal 00:29:36.559 --> 00:29:40.000 God? Spinoza defined the highest good, what he 00:29:40.000 --> 00:29:42.900 called blessedness, as the constant and eternal 00:29:42.900 --> 00:29:46.009 love of God. He refers to this ultimate state 00:29:46.009 --> 00:29:49.710 as the intellectual love of God, or amor dei 00:29:49.710 --> 00:29:53.109 intellectualis. This sounds completely paradoxical. 00:29:53.130 --> 00:29:54.950 If God lacks personality and doesn't love us 00:29:54.950 --> 00:29:58.009 back, how can we possibly love God? That is the 00:29:58.009 --> 00:30:00.710 paradox that makes his ethics so profound. We 00:30:00.710 --> 00:30:02.849 don't love God in the sense of, you know, reciprocal 00:30:02.849 --> 00:30:05.750 affection. Since God is identical to the necessary 00:30:05.750 --> 00:30:08.829 eternal laws of nature, the love is purely cognitive. 00:30:09.250 --> 00:30:11.640 So what does it mean to love God then? To love 00:30:11.640 --> 00:30:14.180 God means to fully, rationally understand and 00:30:14.180 --> 00:30:16.480 affirm the necessary order of the universe and 00:30:16.480 --> 00:30:18.740 our tiny place within it. It's the intellectual 00:30:18.740 --> 00:30:20.900 satisfaction you get from grasping the perfect, 00:30:21.059 --> 00:30:23.779 immutable structure of reality. And this blessed 00:30:23.779 --> 00:30:25.759 state is linked directly to that concept you 00:30:25.759 --> 00:30:28.549 mentioned before, kanatis. Yes, kanatis is the 00:30:28.549 --> 00:30:31.009 defining element of our existence. It means the 00:30:31.009 --> 00:30:33.809 striving, the effort, or the impulse of every 00:30:33.809 --> 00:30:37.029 single thing to persevere in its own being. For 00:30:37.029 --> 00:30:39.630 a human, our kanatis is driven by this desire 00:30:39.630 --> 00:30:42.109 for self -preservation and self -actualization. 00:30:42.349 --> 00:30:44.779 And how does that relate to being perfect? Spinoza 00:30:44.779 --> 00:30:47.180 argues that the more we act according to reason 00:30:47.180 --> 00:30:49.720 and the less we are enslaved by our passive emotions, 00:30:49.980 --> 00:30:52.180 the more we fulfill our conatus and thus the 00:30:52.180 --> 00:30:54.900 more perfect we become. But he also redefines 00:30:54.900 --> 00:30:57.259 perfection itself, moving away from moral judgment. 00:30:57.400 --> 00:30:59.980 He clarifies that perfection does not mean moral 00:30:59.980 --> 00:31:03.309 excellence. It means completeness. Individual 00:31:03.309 --> 00:31:06.250 humans, being mere modifications or modes of 00:31:06.250 --> 00:31:08.670 the infinite substance, can never be absolutely 00:31:08.670 --> 00:31:11.589 complete or perfect. That absolute completeness 00:31:11.589 --> 00:31:14.329 is reserved solely for God, the substance itself. 00:31:14.960 --> 00:31:17.819 So we strive toward a lesser form of completeness, 00:31:17.880 --> 00:31:20.380 a state of maximal fulfillment of our rational 00:31:20.380 --> 00:31:23.200 nature. How do we access this lesser blessedness? 00:31:23.339 --> 00:31:25.740 Through knowledge. Spinoza posited three kinds 00:31:25.740 --> 00:31:28.240 of knowledge, which move us from slavery to freedom. 00:31:28.380 --> 00:31:30.079 Okay, what's the first kind? The first kind of 00:31:30.079 --> 00:31:33.519 knowledge is imagination or opinion. This is 00:31:33.519 --> 00:31:36.440 sensory. It's fragmented. It's based on inadequate 00:31:36.440 --> 00:31:39.420 ideas, rumor, or poorly analyzed experience. 00:31:39.799 --> 00:31:43.259 This is the source of all passive emotion and 00:31:43.259 --> 00:31:46.039 suffering. The default state for most of us, 00:31:46.059 --> 00:31:48.000 probably. What's the second? The second kind 00:31:48.000 --> 00:31:51.210 of knowledge is reason. This is based on adequate, 00:31:51.430 --> 00:31:54.650 clear, and distinct common notions. It allows 00:31:54.650 --> 00:31:56.809 us to understand things deductively, establishing 00:31:56.809 --> 00:32:00.269 universal laws. This is where we grasp the general 00:32:00.269 --> 00:32:02.450 structure of the universe. I'm finally the highest 00:32:02.450 --> 00:32:04.710 state. The third kind of knowledge, which he 00:32:04.710 --> 00:32:07.349 called intuitive knowledge. This is immediate, 00:32:07.549 --> 00:32:10.569 direct insight into the essence of things. It 00:32:10.569 --> 00:32:12.529 allows the individual to see themselves and all 00:32:12.529 --> 00:32:15.450 other modes, not as isolated entities, but subspecie 00:32:15.450 --> 00:32:18.069 eternitatis. Under the aspect of eternity. Exactly, 00:32:18.269 --> 00:32:20.660 as necessary. modifications of substance. So 00:32:20.660 --> 00:32:23.440 this lesser blessedness is achieved through this 00:32:23.440 --> 00:32:25.740 intuitive knowledge, which allows us to see our 00:32:25.740 --> 00:32:28.400 own life and our own destiny as part of the total 00:32:28.400 --> 00:32:31.500 necessary and perfect order of God nature. Precisely. 00:32:31.640 --> 00:32:34.660 When the mind links its fundamental striving, 00:32:34.859 --> 00:32:37.839 its kanatis, to this intuitive knowledge, that 00:32:37.839 --> 00:32:40.220 rational understanding naturally produces the 00:32:40.220 --> 00:32:43.019 highest possible human state, the intellectual 00:32:43.019 --> 00:32:46.740 love of God. So freedom in Spinoza's system is 00:32:46.740 --> 00:32:49.980 not defying necessity. No, it's rationally understanding 00:32:49.980 --> 00:32:52.579 and embracing it. We are most free when we act 00:32:52.579 --> 00:32:54.700 according to the laws of our own rational nature, 00:32:54.920 --> 00:32:57.059 which is itself a necessary part of nature. It's 00:32:57.059 --> 00:33:00.019 a radical inversion of freedom. We're most free 00:33:00.019 --> 00:33:02.160 when we are most aligned with the necessary laws 00:33:02.160 --> 00:33:04.519 that govern us. It's the ultimate rationalist 00:33:04.519 --> 00:33:07.279 project. He shifts the goal of life away from 00:33:07.279 --> 00:33:09.779 seeking supernatural salvation or praying for 00:33:09.779 --> 00:33:12.380 a miracle and towards objective study and reason. 00:33:12.740 --> 00:33:14.940 Through reason, we shed our passive suffering 00:33:14.940 --> 00:33:17.079 and become active participants in the eternal 00:33:17.079 --> 00:33:20.109 order. Benozzo lived a cautious, isolated life. 00:33:20.289 --> 00:33:23.829 But after his death in 1677, his friends secretly 00:33:23.829 --> 00:33:26.710 published his opera postuma. which included the 00:33:26.710 --> 00:33:29.069 TTP and the ethics, to prevent them from being 00:33:29.069 --> 00:33:31.089 confiscated and destroyed. The impact of these 00:33:31.089 --> 00:33:33.589 works was seismic, even if it was delayed by 00:33:33.589 --> 00:33:36.309 decades of suppression. The impact was revolutionary. 00:33:36.769 --> 00:33:39.990 The great German philosopher, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich 00:33:39.990 --> 00:33:43.069 Hegel, asserted that Spinoza is essentially a 00:33:43.069 --> 00:33:45.650 testing point in modern philosophy, so that it 00:33:45.650 --> 00:33:47.950 may really be said, you are either a Spinozist 00:33:47.950 --> 00:33:50.970 or not a philosopher at all. That puts him in 00:33:50.970 --> 00:33:53.579 the absolute pantheon of Western thought. Why 00:33:53.579 --> 00:33:55.740 was his system so appealing to later generations 00:33:55.740 --> 00:33:58.319 of thinkers, especially those struggling with 00:33:58.319 --> 00:34:00.400 the implications of the Enlightenment? Because 00:34:00.400 --> 00:34:02.799 Spinoza offered a compelling alternative to two 00:34:02.799 --> 00:34:06.079 extremes. On one hand, you had pure materialism 00:34:06.079 --> 00:34:08.659 that denied spirit, and on the other, you had 00:34:08.659 --> 00:34:11.039 traditional deism that separated God entirely 00:34:11.039 --> 00:34:13.579 from the world. And Spinoza offered a middle 00:34:13.579 --> 00:34:17.050 path. A unified path. He provided a model for 00:34:17.050 --> 00:34:19.590 the unity of existence, the regularity of everything 00:34:19.590 --> 00:34:22.070 that happens, and the fundamental identity of 00:34:22.070 --> 00:34:24.570 spirit, which he called thought and nature, which 00:34:24.570 --> 00:34:26.570 he called extension. And the list of thinkers 00:34:26.570 --> 00:34:29.329 influenced by him reads like a syllabus of 19th 00:34:29.329 --> 00:34:32.309 and 20th century intellectual history. It's absolutely 00:34:32.309 --> 00:34:35.630 staggering. He influenced the German idealists 00:34:35.630 --> 00:34:38.690 like Kant, Fichte and Schelling, and then later 00:34:38.690 --> 00:34:41.110 thinkers like Marx, Nietzsche and even Freud. 00:34:41.329 --> 00:34:43.730 He was also particularly instrumental in post 00:34:43.730 --> 00:34:46.539 -war French philosophy. How was Spinoza used 00:34:46.539 --> 00:34:49.449 in the French intellectual scene? Well... French 00:34:49.449 --> 00:34:52.170 thinkers like Gilles Deleuze used Spinoza as 00:34:52.170 --> 00:34:54.710 a powerful bulwark against what they saw as the 00:34:54.710 --> 00:34:57.329 irrationalist and subjectivist tendencies of 00:34:57.329 --> 00:35:00.210 phenomenology and existentialism, which often 00:35:00.210 --> 00:35:02.789 prioritize the subjective human experience. And 00:35:02.789 --> 00:35:05.190 Spinoza's system is the opposite of that. It's 00:35:05.190 --> 00:35:07.929 a unified, objective, deterministic system. It 00:35:07.929 --> 00:35:10.829 offered a solid metaphysical foundation for understanding 00:35:10.829 --> 00:35:14.190 reality independent of human consciousness. Deleuze, 00:35:14.309 --> 00:35:16.829 who was profoundly influenced by him, named him 00:35:16.829 --> 00:35:19.599 the Prince of Philosophers. Spinoza also captured 00:35:19.599 --> 00:35:22.199 the imagination of poets and novelists. I love 00:35:22.199 --> 00:35:25.000 the phrase Novalis used for him, the God -intoxicated 00:35:25.000 --> 00:35:27.960 man. That phrase, God -intoxicated, it perfectly 00:35:27.960 --> 00:35:30.619 captures the intense, almost religious dedication 00:35:30.619 --> 00:35:33.579 Spinoza had to understanding the necessary, rational 00:35:33.579 --> 00:35:35.860 God of nature. And he influenced writers, too. 00:35:36.059 --> 00:35:39.519 Oh, yes. Percy Shelley, whose essay The Necessity 00:35:39.519 --> 00:35:42.760 of Atheism, echoed Spinoza's deterministic arguments. 00:35:43.320 --> 00:35:46.119 Jorge Luis Borges dedicated two sonnets to him. 00:35:46.440 --> 00:35:48.920 And there's Isaac Bashevis Singer's short story, 00:35:49.059 --> 00:35:51.519 The Spinoza of Market Street. About a man who 00:35:51.519 --> 00:35:53.920 studies the ethics. Yes, he studies it religiously, 00:35:53.920 --> 00:35:56.800 seeing in it a kind of divine order amidst the 00:35:56.800 --> 00:35:59.000 chaos of everyday life. But perhaps the most 00:35:59.000 --> 00:36:01.500 enduring modern connection is between Spinoza 00:36:01.500 --> 00:36:04.480 and 20th century physics, bridging that 17th 00:36:04.480 --> 00:36:06.800 century rationalism with the modern scientific 00:36:06.800 --> 00:36:10.519 worldview. Albert Einstein. He repeatedly cited 00:36:10.519 --> 00:36:12.739 Spinoza as the philosopher who had the most profound 00:36:12.739 --> 00:36:16.769 influence on his worldview. Why was that? Einstein 00:36:16.769 --> 00:36:19.429 was deeply drawn to the idea of an impersonal 00:36:19.429 --> 00:36:22.010 deity that was equated with the elegant, orderly 00:36:22.010 --> 00:36:25.210 laws of nature. This link became famous in 1929 00:36:25.210 --> 00:36:27.389 when Einstein was asked a direct question about 00:36:27.389 --> 00:36:30.210 his beliefs via telegram. What was his reply? 00:36:30.469 --> 00:36:32.869 And how did it encapsulate Spinoza's system? 00:36:33.090 --> 00:36:35.389 The telegram asked him, do you believe in God? 00:36:35.710 --> 00:36:48.880 And his famous response was... That is pure Spinozism. 00:36:49.059 --> 00:36:52.460 It's the reverence for the mathematical, impersonal, 00:36:52.460 --> 00:36:55.480 immutable law of the universe. It is the intellectual 00:36:55.480 --> 00:36:58.300 love of God for the scientific age. Finally, 00:36:58.300 --> 00:37:00.920 let's return to the beginning, the harem and 00:37:00.920 --> 00:37:04.159 his identity. His expulsion sparked this massive 00:37:04.159 --> 00:37:06.500 debate about whether he should be viewed as the 00:37:06.500 --> 00:37:09.699 first modern Jew. His intellectual break with 00:37:09.699 --> 00:37:12.400 rabbinic tradition and his embrace of pure secular 00:37:12.400 --> 00:37:14.639 rationalism undoubtedly paved the way for the 00:37:14.639 --> 00:37:16.639 concept of the secular Jew, someone who maintains 00:37:16.639 --> 00:37:19.219 a cultural identity without religious observance. 00:37:19.340 --> 00:37:22.059 He profoundly shaped subsequent Jewish Enlightenment 00:37:22.059 --> 00:37:24.320 figures, the Haskalah, like Moses Mendelssohn. 00:37:24.440 --> 00:37:26.679 And ironically, even while he was alienated from 00:37:26.679 --> 00:37:28.360 his community, one of his political writings 00:37:28.360 --> 00:37:31.420 was later seized upon by proto -Zionists. Yes, 00:37:31.500 --> 00:37:34.519 that is due to a fascinating brief passage in 00:37:34.519 --> 00:37:37.800 the Tractatus Theologico -Politicus. Spinoza 00:37:37.800 --> 00:37:39.900 suggested that if the Jewish people could overcome 00:37:39.900 --> 00:37:42.940 what he called their religiously imposed discouragement 00:37:42.940 --> 00:37:45.719 of manliness, meaning physical and political 00:37:45.719 --> 00:37:48.019 strength. What did he say would happen? He said 00:37:48.019 --> 00:37:50.199 he would not hesitate to believe that they will 00:37:50.199 --> 00:37:53.199 one day, given the opportunity, establish once 00:37:53.199 --> 00:37:56.340 more their independent state. Wow. And this prophetic 00:37:56.340 --> 00:37:59.440 passage was used by secular Zionist forerunners 00:37:59.440 --> 00:38:02.420 like David Ben -Gurion, who saw Spinoza as the 00:38:02.420 --> 00:38:05.420 first secular proto -Zionist thinker. Now, in 00:38:05.420 --> 00:38:07.840 the 21st century, there have been movements to 00:38:07.840 --> 00:38:10.699 officially lift the harem and welcome him back, 00:38:10.820 --> 00:38:13.429 metaphorically, into the fold. What has been 00:38:13.429 --> 00:38:16.170 the fate of those efforts? The Portuguese -Israelite 00:38:16.170 --> 00:38:18.590 commune of Amsterdam has consistently refused. 00:38:18.969 --> 00:38:21.530 The most recent instance was in 2015 when the 00:38:21.530 --> 00:38:23.889 chief rabbi maintained that Spinoza's ideas, 00:38:24.150 --> 00:38:26.269 his fundamental tearing apart of the concept 00:38:26.269 --> 00:38:29.449 of a divine, willful, personal God, had not become 00:38:29.449 --> 00:38:32.369 less problematic over time. So the preposterous 00:38:32.369 --> 00:38:34.650 ideas are still preposterous. To the Orthodox 00:38:34.650 --> 00:38:37.929 view, yes. The harem remains in effect a 367 00:38:37.929 --> 00:38:40.610 -year -old marker of intellectual defiance. So 00:38:40.610 --> 00:38:43.139 he remains an officially banished heretic. And 00:38:43.139 --> 00:38:45.519 yet his status in the Netherlands today is monumental. 00:38:45.980 --> 00:38:48.559 He's a cultural and intellectual hero. He is 00:38:48.559 --> 00:38:50.840 a core figure in Dutch history. His portrait 00:38:50.840 --> 00:38:53.280 was on the 1000 Gilder banknote and the highest 00:38:53.280 --> 00:38:55.480 scientific award in the country is named the 00:38:55.480 --> 00:38:59.059 Spinoza Prize. His enduring legacy lies in his 00:38:59.059 --> 00:39:01.539 success at intellectually separating theology 00:39:01.539 --> 00:39:04.360 from politics and establishing the rigorous path 00:39:04.360 --> 00:39:07.199 of modern rationalism. A path that demanded we 00:39:07.199 --> 00:39:10.159 understand the world through necessary objective 00:39:10.159 --> 00:39:13.210 law. Right. And the final word on his political 00:39:13.210 --> 00:39:15.849 vision remains inscribed on the statue dedicated 00:39:15.849 --> 00:39:18.829 to him in Amsterdam, a quote from the TTP. It 00:39:18.829 --> 00:39:20.949 reads, the objective of the state is freedom, 00:39:21.090 --> 00:39:23.570 a freedom defined not by political whims, but 00:39:23.570 --> 00:39:25.869 by rational self -governance. Spinoza's trajectory 00:39:25.869 --> 00:39:28.809 from merchant to exiled lens grinder to monumental 00:39:28.809 --> 00:39:31.789 philosopher is one of pure, defiant intellectual 00:39:31.789 --> 00:39:34.349 striving. He challenged us to accept the most 00:39:34.349 --> 00:39:36.849 difficult truth, that we are not the center of 00:39:36.849 --> 00:39:39.050 the universe and we are not endowed with some 00:39:39.050 --> 00:39:41.739 special magical free will. His final teaching 00:39:41.739 --> 00:39:44.179 was that understand the true causes of our actions, 00:39:44.420 --> 00:39:46.780 replacing our inadequate ideas with adequate 00:39:46.780 --> 00:39:49.500 ones, is the only way to move toward genuine 00:39:49.500 --> 00:39:52.380 freedom and blessedness. It is the ultimate act 00:39:52.380 --> 00:39:55.260 of rational self mastery. So here is a provocative 00:39:55.260 --> 00:39:57.119 thought for you to carry forward as you conclude 00:39:57.119 --> 00:40:00.420 this deep dive. If, as Benoza argues, everything 00:40:00.420 --> 00:40:02.500 that happens, including your specific thoughts, 00:40:02.639 --> 00:40:04.539 your most cherished desires, and your greatest 00:40:04.539 --> 00:40:07.420 decisions, follows necessarily from the immutable 00:40:07.420 --> 00:40:09.980 eternal laws of nature, does true human freedom 00:40:09.980 --> 00:40:11.840 lie not in the ability to choose differently 00:40:11.840 --> 00:40:13.980 from what is, but rather in the purely rational 00:40:13.980 --> 00:40:16.739 acceptance, through intellectual love, of the 00:40:16.739 --> 00:40:19.199 necessity of the universe? And if so, what would 00:40:19.199 --> 00:40:21.260 it take for you to truly embrace that necessity?