In 1656, a young Amsterdam merchant was excommunicated by his Portuguese-Jewish community in the harshest terms it had ever used. Baruch Spinoza was accused of unspecified 鈥渉orrifying heresies,鈥� but the precise reasons for his expulsion remain a mystery. When he published his Theological-Political Treatise in 1670, which was condemned as 鈥渢he most atheistic book ever written,鈥� he began to reveal to the world what his heresies may have been. Yet ever since the eighteenth century, most readers and scholars have assumed that Spinoza was a pantheist鈥攅ven a 鈥淕od-intoxicated man,鈥� as the poet Novalis put it. After all, how could a person whose books are suffused with talk of God be an atheist? In Spinoza, Atheist, Steven Nadler, one of the world鈥檚 leading authorities on the philosopher, aims to settle the question and show that that鈥檚 exactly what he was.
Nadler makes a powerful case that there is no real divinity for Spinoza. God is Nature, and isn鈥檛 an object of worshipful awe or religious reverence but can only be understood through philosophy and science. There is nothing supernatural鈥攏o mystery, ineffability, or sublimity. Spinoza does speak of 鈥渂lessedness鈥� and 鈥渟alvation,鈥� but these, too, are to be understood in natural and rational terms, as the peace of mind and happiness that come from understanding ourselves and the world.
Whether Spinoza believed in God is a fascinating and enduring controversy. Spinoza, Atheist promises to transform our understanding of his views and to make clear just how radical a thinker he was and remains.
Steven Nadler is Vilas Research Professor and the William H. Hay II Professor of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. His many books include Rembrandt’s Jews, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, Spinoza: A Life, Think Least of Death: Spinoza on How to Live and How to Die (快色直播), and A Book Forged in Hell: Spinoza’s Scandalous Treatise and the Birth of the Secular Age.
"A magisterially clear introduction to Spinoza’s arguments for living virtuously without the need of a judging God."鈥�Kirkus
"A fresh and fascinating take on one of Western thoughts’ most important and enigmatic minds. . . . a nuanced defense of Spinoza that unfurls like the best kind of philosophical argument."鈥擱ab颅bi Marc Katz, Jewish Book Council
"Compelling. . . . Steven Nadler achieves something considerable, which is to make Baruch Spinoza feel relevant to contemporary debates about religious belief and its absence. . . without reducing him to our terms."鈥擩oe Moshenska, Literary Review
“In this wonderful book, the world’s preeminent Spinoza scholar makes a provocative argument. Steven Nadler offers a fresh look at the great philosopher’s true beliefs—and, in the process, invites readers to examine their own.”—Arthur C. Brooks, coauthor of the #1 New York Times bestseller Build the Life You Want: The Art and Science of Getting Happier
“Steven Nadler is not only a lucid guide to Spinoza’s thinking, and not just a persuasive advocate of the Dutch philosopher’s atheism, but a wonderful, elegant, and witty writer. In fact, he is a better stylist than Spinoza himself, whose often complicated philosophical arguments are made crystal clear in this engaging book.”—Ian Buruma, author of Spinoza: Freedom’s Messiah
“Spinoza, Atheist is clear, accessible, and concise. One couldn’t ask for a more adept account of Spinoza’s view of what he calls ‘God or nature’ and humankind’s relation to this philosophical God—or of what it meant to be a philosophical ‘atheist’ in the seventeenth century.”—Jonathan I. Israel, author of Spinoza, Life and Legacy
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