Binding: Hardcover
EAN: 9780300114058
Format: Import
ISBN: 0300114052
Label: Yale University Press
Manufacturer: Yale University Press
Number Of Pages: 288
Publication Date: 2006-01-31
Publisher: Yale University Press
Studio: Yale University Press

Customer Rating:
Summary: Spinoza...a fly-on-the-wall perspective
Comment: This wonderful book gives the reader a great insight into the times and the mind of Spinoza. Later, others such as Ralph
Waldo Emerson, Albert Einstein and Eckhart Tolle articulated very similar philosophical views, but it was Spinoza who had the courage to pay an enormous price by veering off into then such radical philosophy; philosophy that ushured new thinking into the zeitgeist and, in the process, motivated Locke, Jefferson, Adams Washington and others to, ultimately, introduce a new and better world order. The "Courtier and the Heretic" gives the reader a-fly-on-the-wall perspective on the creation of the truly modern age.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Worthy of a Go On The Big Screen of the Mind (from Ahadada Books)
Comment: To be frank, I loved this book primarily because of its re-embodiment of the philosophies of two of the greatest thinkers of the Enlightenment. Said philosophies are usually presented scrubbed of all blood, phlegm and jizz, bright and shiny as skeletons of chrome jiggling in the void. It's easy to trace which bone connects to which, as the theorems and corollaries of Spinoza's ethics and Leibniz's Monadology click into place with the same innate logic and regularity that guides the hand of the forensic investigator to recover the basic physical structure of a lost organism, but to stretch believable skin over the framework and to breathe life into the nostrils, and to set these great ideas loose on two legs complete with a head whirling from too much hubris or too much coughing from a terminal bout of T.B., this is what great art-- great story telling--can do. This is exactly what the author of this book does for his readers with the fine touch of a novelist. Leibniz, the brittle genius meets the awesome grinder of lenses who sits at the center of a whirlwind of invective totally unafraid. Ever after, Leibniz carries the memory of three days spent in Spinoza's presence like a lesion on the frontal lobe that sets everything he writes against a field of stars and deepest night. So what if we feel that Leibniz comes out the lesser of the two greatnesses? Other books may act as a palliative for that. This book makes fine theater of the mind, and these apparitions called forth by the necromantic powers of the author may move us in the same way that Helen called forth by the Faust of Marlowe moved his scholar friends. In these pages we are transported back in time to a glorious moment of intellectual history, and allowed to be the fly on the wall we always wished we could be. The ideas, so embodied, are given context and scope and once again glow.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Philosophy or Fiction?
Comment: Before reading Matthew Stewart's THE COURTIER AND THE HERETIC, I suggest reading "A Note on Sources", in the rear of the book sandwiched between the Notes and Bibliography. Stewart explains the premise of the book which is a meeting between Leibniz (the Courtier) and Spinoza (the Heretic) that took place shortly before Spinoza's death and that meeting served to influence Leibniz's philosophy. Stewart acknowledges that the basis of his book is not a widely held belief among philosophers or historians.

The book does show that these two philosophers are diametric opposites in virtually all ways. There is no confusion on where Stewart stands philosophically, he describes Spinoza with great affection as society's outcast and excommunicated Jew, the secularist who by day grinds optical lenses and by night has deep thoughts and writes. Living in a garret in The Hague in Nederland he survives on raisins and milk. Stewart is openly contemptuous of Leibniz and his lifestyle even inventing a currency system to compare the monies Leibniz receives to that of Spinoza. Unlike Spinoza, Leibniz is a Renaissance man who is interested in everything and he spends a great deal of time becoming financially secure serving various European nobles. Just to scratch the surface; he serves as a political consultant, he tries to devise a unification scheme for the various branches of Christianity sprouting throughout Europe, he develops an unsuccessful means of pumping water from silver mines in the Harz Mountains of Germany, invents calculus and an adding machine, studies the Chinese and their culture, corresponds with and visits many of Europe's great minds and inventors while also having deep thoughts and being such a prolific writer that many of his works are still being cataloged.

Would Leibniz dwell on his Spinoza visit and allow it to influence his philosophy? Being the dervish that Leibniz was and with his prolificacy it's obvious that Leibniz was very capable of thinking for himself which makes Stewart's theory improbable, in my opinion. They did correspond and met for an undetermined amount of time (hours, days no one knows) and were aware each other, Leibniz was 30 and Spinoza 44 when they met. Leibniz would live another forty years while Spinoza would be dead in three months. Leibniz had much more time to both develop and expand his own philosophy while studying the works of Spinoza. Often it appears that events and writings are contorted to fit the books premise, Stewart "slices and dices" with many "maybes", "appears to be" and "inferences" also taking one or two words, in quotes, from source material to build his case.

Both men are giants of Western Civilization and a part of the foundation of modern philosophy. There are numerous books both by and about Spinoza and Leibniz that will educate. Stewart may have needed a "hook" to get published, but it's hard to know whether THE COURTIER AND THE HERETIC should be in the philosophy or fiction section.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Through the eye of a pinhole
Comment: A wonderful idea for a book; cleaving all the ideas concerning god into two distinct categories--valiantly represented by two of the greatest rationalist philosophers of the 17th century--could be an excellent starting point for discussing the "modern" conception of god. The problem with the book is how close it comes to being a polemic of the naturalist philosophy that is served up in the large majority of universities in English speaking countries.

Stewart's approach to Leibniz is not unlike Bertrand Russell's (he lauded him, but misrepresented his views), yet he takes it one step further by making brash insinuations about his character and motives, until the reader is left with the impression that Leibniz was a disingenuous liar, who stole most of his great ideas, and would stop at nothing for a regal lifestyle in the courts. Spinoza and Leibniz were brilliant philosophers, whose influence continues to this day. To cast Spinoza as relevant and Leibniz as some outdated scholastic philosopher, whose musings on god he'd like to pawn off as some kind of evangelist nonsense. Stewart can be amusing and his take on the history of ideas can be interesting, but in the end has created a ridiculously unbalanced view of two astounding philosophers. To Stewart's credit, he does give some time to Leibniz's ideas and influence, but the work wholeheartedly is to cast him in the light of some flat-world explorer. I didn't hate this book, and perhaps it is better than 2 stars, but it is as truthful as Russell's History of Western Philosophy.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Philosophy for the Mass
Comment: The book is aptly named, except for the fact that it includes "the fate of God in the modern world". God seems to survive despite our best attempts to rationalize her out of human experience(Spinoza) or act so badly that no one would want to believe in a God who had ardent followers like Leibniz. Anyway, I found the book to be a "good read", but I am interested in these philosophical musing. Those readers who have little background in relatively "modern" philosophy might get lost in the intellectual discussion of the major protagonists' thought, but the narrative is fascinating. I enjoyed reading about these fellows' lives and how they intersected on so many levels. Whether the author intended this or not, Spinoza seems to get the nod for "best in philosophy" and "best person" awards. Leibniz becomes the sore "loser" with a prideful chip on his shoulder. Apparently, Leibniz never ate humble pie?

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