Baruch Spinoza was excommunicated by the Jewish community when he was in his early twenties. In Irving Yalom's novel about him, this seems a totally horrendous thing - and to be fair the excommunication was stated especially severely in his case. But it wasn't that rare an event at the time in Amsterdam. The Jews had come from Portugal where they'd been threatened by the Inquisitition and where the religion was so suppressed that many of them couldn't read Hebrew and didn't have a deep sense of the tradition. They had the passion of converts and wanted to keep the faith pure in a land where they felt safe.
The myth of Spinoza also suggests he earned his living lens grinding - that's what I thought - but Anthony Gottlieb tells me he was funded by sponsors or patrons and though he lived frugally, he was hardly in need.
And then there's the other Romantic interpretation - that he revered nature in a proto-eco-warrior sense. This is because of his view that God and Nature are one - but his conception wasn't at all sentimental; it was metaphysical and rational but not emotional. In fact, Spinoza doesn't have the slightest concern for non-human animals. They can't reason, so, as it were, screw them. Or, rather, eat them.
But, I'm being both selective and somewhat satirical. He was a genius and a deep and rigorous thinker. It's a shame that neither I nor many others really understand much of what he said, but those who do have found a great deal to inspire them.
Anyway, what I wanted to bring up was something he said about anger - and it relates as well to other emotions. There are many ways to think about emotions, and frankly, I want to explore this more, but let's start here. He said that having experienced anger on one occasion, he investigated it carefully. What led to it? How did he feel and when and why? What was he thinking then? And why did those thoughts come to mind? He'd started off thinking, as we often do, 'That person has made me angry.' The blame was on the other. By the end of it, having understood the causes and contingencies, the aspects of his character and his past, he developed real clarity and that distanced him from the emotion. Indeed, he could take responsibility for it, rather than feeling that the other was responsible. He thus felt calm and was able to move on.
This is reminiscent of Stoicism and indeed he was influenced by the Stoics. I have recently come to feel rather differently about this mode of living - although I am inclined to think, in the light of the Very Bad Wizards' discussion of anger which I pondered the other day, that perhaps Spinoza was dealing with an anger that was, in Amie Srinavasan's terms, not apt. If that is the case, then it seems to me an immensely valuable exercise.
So here is an example, I suppose, of another philosopher advocating the merits of (a form of) meditation.
Another case, Arthur Schopenhauer, the dear old pessimist, was something of a fan of Buddhism. He valued the emphasis placed on compassion - and indeed he is rare among philosophers (before Peter Singer) for condemning all cruelty to animals. He states this rather beautifully, in language very different from the tone of scorn and cynicism that he often employs:
...because Christian morality leaves animals out of account . . . they are at once outlawed in philosophical morals; they are mere “things”, mere means to any ends whatsoever. They can therefore be used for vivisection, hunting, coursing, bullfights, and horse racing, and can be whipped to death as they struggle along with heavy carts of stone. Shame on such a morality that . . . fails to recognise the eternal essence that exists in every living thing, and shines forth with inscrutable significance from all eyes that see the sun! (from The World as Will)
He seemed to find the contemplative side immensely beneficial too - in a way related to Murdoch's concept of unselfing, the 'pure cognition' of Zen. Schopenhauer stated that through focused attention on an object, the subject dissolves away and instead of being seen through a glass darkly, the truth of the object can shine forth. It's this meditative 'clearing away' of subjectivity that he feels is crucial in philosophy (and as I argued is important in considering history). He writes:
Almost all the errors and unutterable follies of which doctrines and philosophies are so full seem to me to spring from a lack of this probity. The truth was not found, not because it was unsought, but because the intention always was to find again instead some preconceived opinion or other, or at least not to wound some favourite idea, and with this aim in view subterfuges had to be employed against both other people and the thinker himself. It is the courage of making a clean breast of it in face of every question that makes the philosopher. (His letter to Goethe, 11 November 1815, quoted by Ferenczi First Contributions to Psycho-analysis.)
Clarity. It comes back to clarity.
Comments