I have a penchant for schizophrenic books, often finding myself drawn to their tangential nature. This particular book contains some highly captivating paragraphs regarding Spinoza's philosophy. However, it also dedicates dozens of pages to the author's own childhood experiences of learning about Spinoza. While not entirely irrelevant, these sections lack the necessary interest to justify the amount of space they occupy.

Moreover, there is an excessive amount of speculation aimed at establishing the context of what Spinoza might have been exposed to. And to conclude the book, there is an imagined narrative of what Spinoza's life and thoughts could have potentially been like. This combination of elements makes for a somewhat uneven reading experience, with moments of great interest being overshadowed by less engaging sections.

Nevertheless, the book does offer some valuable insights into Spinoza's philosophy, which may be of interest to those with a particular fascination for this area of study.

This is my third book by Goldstein and my response to all three remains the same.

I am extremely intrigued by the philosophical ideas she delves into. However, I'm not as enamored with the personal and historical details she interweaves within it.

In this particular book, we gain insights into the history of Jewish philosophical development during Spinoza's era. We also learn a bit about Spinoza's personal history.

Subsequently, it delves into the philosophical aspects regarding Spinoza and his highly unusual approach to God, especially for his time.

The philosophical focus mainly centers on Spinoza's Ethics and his contention that through a rational/logical approach, we can discover our ethics.

But the real emphasis is not so much on the ethics themselves but rather on the development of the self according to Spinoza if we lead a rational life.

By means of rationality, we are able to step outside of ourselves, become one with nature/God, and shed our self-absorption and selfish notions.

Overall, while the book has its strengths in presenting Spinoza's philosophical ideas, the balance between the philosophical and the personal/historical could perhaps be improved.

I truly loved this book. Spinoza, wedged between Descartes and Leibniz in the 17th century, is one of the philosophical giants. He laid the foundation of what commentators would later call modernity, along with great thinkers like Immanuel Kant, John Locke, and many others.

However, I didn't know much about Spinoza before. His almost fanatical pursuit of the truth as he understood it, which turned out to be an intricate hyper-rationalist system, was remarkable. Also, his willingness to suffer excommunication from the Jewish community in Amsterdam to continue on his path was truly astonishing.

His early ideas on the separation of church and state and each individual's right to pursue truth, not confined by traditions, customs, or institutions, set the stage for future thinkers.

This book is more of a study of the man Spinoza than the philosopher Spinoza. That's why the author titled her book Betraying Spinoza. Apparently, he would have cringed at an intellectual biography that tried to trace his philosophy back to life events.

I highly recommend it for anyone interested in 17th century philosophy or how modernity came into being. It offers a fascinating look into the life and ideas of this important figure.

Reality is ontologically enriched logic.

Baruch Spinoza's personal and uniquely structured biography is explored, with a strong emphasis on the history and situation of Jewish life around the time of his birth and how that distinct culture influenced his thought. While the book doesn't directly serve as an introduction to Spinoza's thought (although the later quarter attempts to make up for it), that doesn't seem to be the main focus. Instead, much of the book delves into the author's own experiences with Spinoza, such as what her conservative Jewish school teacher was (mis-)teaching.

There are many aspects of Spinoza's thought that resonate with the author. For example, "because, having stood beside oneself and viewed the world as it is, unwarped by one’s identity within it, one will understand that there is nothing of special significance about one’s own endeavor to persist and flourish that doesn’t pertain to others’ same endeavors. One will therefore, simply as a matter of reason, want for others precisely what one wants for oneself. 'The good which everyman, who follows after virtue, desires for himself he will also desire for other men, and so much the more, in proportion as he has a greater knowledge of God.'" Or this one: "But it is the responsibility of each person to increase his own understanding. It is the most profound responsibility that we have, as even the rabbis, in their confused way, had perceived, equating a man’s moral progress with his intellectual progress."

It should be noted that Spinoza's concept of God is different from the traditional image of a bearded guy in the sky. It is more like an unknowable entity of which all of reality is a subset, somewhat similar to Fromm's highest form of religion described in The Art of Loving. It is a wonderful concept; reality is always explainable, and only through rationality can one come closer to happiness and, in a sense, God.

This is my second time going through this text.

It presents some truly serious scholarship and profound thought.

It is astonishing to think that Spinoza was able to get so many things right, yet some 350 years later, we are still burdened with superstitious religion.

His ideas seem to have stood the test of time, and yet our society has been slow to fully embrace and understand them.

I find myself compelled to read this again, as there is clearly much more to uncover and learn from his work.

Perhaps with each successive reading, I will gain a deeper appreciation for the significance of his contributions and how they can help us move beyond the limitations of superstition and towards a more enlightened understanding of the world.

How could I not love a book about a Jew who was excommunicated and wrote his own laws based on rationality and logic?

It doesn't hurt that he's handsome, at least on the cover painting of BETRAYING SPINOZA: THE RENEGADE JEW WHO GAVE US MODERNITY by Rebecca Goldstein. Goldstein, however, does betray Spinoza in a sense. Instead of simply honoring his mathematical principles of understanding, she attempts to place him in the context of a time and place.

Spinoza's ETHICS and other writings are a remarkable effort. They aim to liberate one from the prison of self and expand our innate self-interest to the greater community of man. In this way, we can all take care of one another.

Goldstein skillfully mixes genres. She starts with her introduction to the "heretic" in yeshiva, then shares her experiences as a philosophy professor. The final section of the book is perhaps the most interesting. She does the unthinkable, at least in Spinoza's mind. She uses her imagination as a novelist to conjure the man who was rejected by his religion and promoted secularism before the word even existed.

What Goldstein has accomplished is truly remarkable. She has sparked the kindle of interest in this difficult thinker. By examining the struggle Spinoza faced during the time of the Inquisition, she shows how he became a Jewish thinker who may be a Moses of philosophic thought. Through sheer focus and diligence, he constructed the true laws of God, the God who is nature, the God who is reality. It is this spirit that offers hope.

A very good book which might be accused of going off on tangents for too long.

I'm not entirely certain what the essence of this book is. It isn't a straightforward biography, yet it delves deeply into much of Spinoza's life. It details not only the external circumstances of his existence but also what the author imagines Spinoza must have endured mentally during the development of his philosophical ideas.

Nor is it solely about Spinoza. It provides a detailed account of the historical and psychological context of the Portuguese Jewish community in Amsterdam, expanding at great length and with a highly informative impact.

The title, 'Betraying Spinoza', is quite fitting. As Goldstein details all the subjective influences on Spinoza's philosophy, she is going against her own interpretation of Spinoza's rationalist, objective efforts to eliminate the empirical, subjective approach to understanding the world. This was the medieval approach that caused both his community and himself to suffer.

Using this approach, the book is an exercise in precisely the kind of thought that Spinoza would have dismissed. However, in attempting to gain a more comprehensive understanding of Spinoza's thought, it is ultimately a worthwhile endeavor.

It is recommended for those who have studied any philosophy in college and wish to learn more, or for those who feel like outsiders to the continental, idealist philosophical tradition.

Utterly fascinating. This simple phrase holds within it a world of wonder and intrigue. It is a description that can be applied to a countless number of things. A beautiful painting that seems to come alive before your eyes, its colors and details captivating your attention. A scientific discovery that challenges our understanding of the universe and leaves us in awe. A thrilling adventure that takes us to far-off places and exposes us to new cultures and experiences. These are just a few examples of the many things that can be described as utterly fascinating.

When we encounter something that is utterly fascinating, it has the power to transport us to another place and time. It can make us forget about our daily worries and concerns and focus solely on the present moment. It can inspire us to learn more, to explore further, and to push the boundaries of what we thought was possible. Whether it is a work of art, a scientific breakthrough, or a personal experience, the concept of being utterly fascinating is one that enriches our lives and makes us more fully human.

Spiroza was born into a world in the Portuguese community in Amsterdam, which had its distinct characteristics through exposure. For a long time, it could lead to something going wrong in our efforts to justify our beliefs. The Portuguese Inquisition trials were, in a sense, an intellectual tragedy, born from men who believed in themselves and unshakable convictions in facts they couldn't possess.

Spiroza took this tragedy upon himself and contemplated it intellectually since his difficult childhood. However, his insistence on thinking about the tragedy of his society to the greatest extent possible forced him to invent a unique life for himself, emphasizing secularism at a time when the concept hadn't yet crystallized.

His insistence on thinking about the tragedy of his society led to a unique philosophical system. He emphasized through it that moral facts are inherent in the human condition and not elsewhere. And that our shared human nature obliges us to treat each other with the highest degrees of dignity, which is evolving, not static, creating greater opportunities for our interaction, creating broader spaces for our intersection, and facilitating the paths towards a balanced rational life. There is no doubt that the world owes what it has known of changes to Spinoza's thought and his explicit call through his ideas to face the world and engage in its mysteries with free thought and a courageous mind.

End of the book.

I have become a Spinoza enthusiast ever since I started to develop a serious interest in oriental philosophy.

Consequently, I have begun reading up on him and his system.

After reading "Spinoza: A Life", a thorough yet somewhat unfocused biography, I found this book to be much more enjoyable.

Here, the betraying aspect is the attempt to tell the story of the philosopher as an individual, thus foregoing Spinoza's own effort to connect everyone and everything into a oneness with the universe and God.

The book is highly informative. It succeeds in conveying the most important biographical facts and protagonists of Spinoza's life without becoming tedious or overzealous, as Steven M. Nadler seemed to me in his own work.

It provides a detailed account of Spinoza's life, from his early years to his later philosophical developments.

The author manages to bring Spinoza to life, making him more than just a distant figure in the history of philosophy.

Overall, it is a great read for anyone interested in Spinoza or the history of philosophy.

The 17th century philosopher Baruch Spinoza had a profound impact on today's western secular zeitgeist, perhaps more so than any other single modern thinker. His radical rationalism brought to fruition the humanistic, Copernican, and Galilean revolutions of the previous two hundred years, and laid the foundation for the Enlightenment and the post-industrial-revolution world, which we now call "modernity". We are indebted to Spinoza for many things, such as the idea of tolerance enshrined in the United States constitution. This leads us to wonder how his ideas came to be.

In "Betraying Spinoza", Rebecca Goldstein delves into the philosopher's biography and social context. She discovers that Spinoza, a renegade Jew in 17th century Amsterdam, holds the key to his philosophy. However, she does this against his view of the universe as a unity where individuals dissolve, knowing full well that singling him out would be a betrayal.

To understand Spinoza, Goldstein argues, we must look at his roots in the exiled Jewish-Portuguese community of 17th century Amsterdam. Having fled the horrors of the Spanish Inquisition, they found refuge in Holland, which was a unique island of religious tolerance in Europe at that time. Centuries of persecution had shaped a Jewish religious system that found meaning and solace in a transcendental god and afterlife. The abstract and intellectual theology of the Torah and Talmud merged with the mysticism of Kabbalah in a belief system that was at odds with the principles of reason that were sweeping through Europe, especially after Descartes.

Spinoza was never satisfied with the religion he was taught. He sympathized with the all-too-human need of his fellow Jews to make sense of centuries of persecution, but he refused to accept a fabricated religion that negated reason. He respected his community and was not motivated by a desire to rebel for the sake of it. He waited until his parents had passed away before publishing his controversial theses, and even then he did so under a pseudonym. But this did not protect him from being discovered and excommunicated, at which point he openly criticized religion.

In place of Jewish mysticism, Spinoza found a more comforting view in Descartes's rationalism. For him, nature is all there is. It is self-contained, self-caused, and self-justified. Whether we call it nature or god, it is the same. It exists by necessity, and its existence is a necessary attribute of being, a tautological propensity that Spinoza called "conatus". Necessity makes nature one with reason, which is nothing less than logic explicated.

Humans possess reason, albeit in a finite form compared to the infinite reason of nature, and we can understand the universe with ever-increasing depth. We are one with the reason of nature, and our individualities cease to exist in the universe. Suffering arises when we do not recognize our rationality and act irrationally. There is no evil or salvation, just reason. If the Jews recognized this principle, they would not need to resort to mysticism to explain the world and find comfort in something outside of this world. There is nothing outside nature. Nothing to justify. Justification is intrinsic to the world. In this way, Spinoza went beyond Descartes, who still distinguished between reason and nature.

The secular world view, with science recognized as the method to understand nature and seek causes within the world, and the ethics of rational tolerance that shape our world systems, may seem self-evident to us today, but they were revolutionary at that time. It took a renegade, who grew up with the terrifying stories of the evils of irrationality, to realize how much of our suffering is self-inflicted and that a better world is possible.

Rebecca Goldstein is an outstanding writer. She makes the readers care about Spinoza as a person and gives us a glimpse of how he might have felt during his life. She also makes us realize that philosophy does indeed progress. Centuries of debates have not been in vain. If we enjoy modernity today, we owe it in part to brave thinkers like Spinoza.

I really enjoyed reading Spinoza. His profound philosophical ideas and unique perspectives have always fascinated me.

However, when it comes to the memoir, I didn't have the same level of interest. Maybe it's because the writing style didn't appeal to me, or perhaps the content didn't engage me as much as Spinoza's works.

Nevertheless, I still believe that everyone has different tastes and preferences when it comes to reading. What one person enjoys, another may not.

Despite not caring for the memoir, I will continue to explore and study the works of Spinoza, as I am convinced that there is still much to learn and discover from his philosophical insights.

Who knows, maybe in the future, I will come across a memoir that will capture my attention and leave a lasting impression on me.