Benedict de Spinoza

The aspects of Spinoza's life that we consider fascinatingly personal -- his religious and ethnic background, his habits and relationships, his family history and quirks -- were qualities Spinoza himself dismissed as mere ephemera and illusion. To write about Spinoza's own life as if it matters is, in a way, to betray him. --Laura Miller, Everybody loves Spinoza, Salon, May 17, 2006, review of Betraying Spinoza, by Rebecca Goldstein, and The Courtier and the Heretic, by Matthew Stewart


Spinoza's ideal is the intellectual life; the Christian's ideal is the religious life. Between the two states there is all the difference which there is between the being in love, and the following, with delighted comprehension, a demonstration of Euclid. For Spinoza, undoubtedly, the crown of the intellectual life is a transport, as for the saint the crown of the religious life is a transport; but the two transports are not the same. --Matthew Arnold, Spinoza and the Bible, 'Essays: Literary and Critical (1906), by Matthew Arnold, p. 184, Internet Archive

A Kibitz on Pure Reason, by Rebecca Newberger Goldstein and Michael Weiss, Jewcy, March 17, 2007 et seq.
(via Stefan Beck at Arma Virumque)

A Philosophical Puzzle: Who Was This Guy Spinoza? By Hillary Putnam, review of Betraying Spinoza: The Renegade Jew Who Gave Us Modernity, by Rebecca Goldstein, New York Observer, December 18, 2006

The Neurologist and the Philosopher, review by Erica Goode of Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow and the Feeling Brain (2003), by Antonio Damasio, Scientific American, March 2003

Review by Neil Levy of Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow and the Feeling Brain (2003), by Antonio Damasio, Metapsychology, February 24, 2003

Fear Factor, review by Colin McGinn of Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow and the Feeling Brain (2003), by Antonio Damasio, New York Times, February 23, 2003